AfterAge (8 page)

Somewhere in the maze that was downtown, Deb could have sworn she heard a woman’s faint scream.

REVELATION 19:13

And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood.

~ * ~

"My God," Perlman breathed. The bloody bandage pressed against his wrist slipped unnoticed from his fingers. “
My God!
"

He was looking at
people
, for the first time in—why, since he couldn't
remember
! And there they stood, a woman and a man—teenager, really—not six feet away! The woman, his height and about thirty, had short hair and brown eyes that stared right through him. The teenager was lean and hard, a born street fighter wearing an olive t-shirt under an army jacket from which the sleeves had been ripped; tense muscles bunched beneath the coffee-colored skin of the young man’s arms. His odd, tawny eyes were emotionless beneath thick black hair, but some kind of metal weapon hung loosely from one hand and Perlman had no doubt his visitor could use it with deadly speed.

Those few words of surprise; then all Perlman could do was stare soundlessly.

After a few seconds, the teenager reached into a breast pocket and withdrew a cigarette. Without taking his eyes from the doctor, he lit it one-handed from a book of matches.

Voice hoarse, Perlman said the first thing that came to mind. "Those things will kill you."

The boy grinned. "Lots of things'll kill you, mister." His features, Perlman realized, were delicate and almost pretty; his face didn’t match the vaguely dangerous physique. "Matter of fact"—the youth arched an eyebrow—"you're dripping on the floor."

Perlman glanced absently at the blood trickling around his fingers in a slow but steady flow. "What? Oh—this is nothing."

"Did you cut yourself?" the woman asked.

"Miscalculated, that's all." Perlman pressed a square of gauze over the small puncture. "Nothing a little coagulant won't fix."

"So you are a doctor," the teenager said. "We—"

"My name's Calie," the woman cut in. "This is C.J." She smiled slightly, trying to put him at ease. "He won’t tell what the initials stand for. What should we call you?" The boy pulled on his cigarette, undisturbed by the interruption.

Perlman wiped at the bloody floor with a length of paper towel, his sore foot making his movements awkward. His hands were shaking, too—he was just an all-around mess. "William—Bill, I mean. Bill Perlman." He wadded up the towel and tossed it at an open plastic bag on the floor. "I . . ."

He gave up then, unable to do anything but stand there with a huge, stupid smile plastered across his face.

~ * ~

"We saw you drag the bloodsucker back this morning," C.J. said matter-of-factly. "Did you kill it?"

The three of them were in the large room that Perlman called home, and having company for the first time made Perlman aware of just how uninviting his living quarters were. He and C.J. were sitting on the sofa, a leatherette thing Perlman had found in a waiting room; beside it was an end table sporting a defunct brass lamp and a metal table on which sat a camping stove and two clean pots above a small stock of fuel, plastic water jugs, and some groceries. Folded neatly in the corner were his winter supplies; two kerosene heaters, heavy sleeping bag and blankets, a case of kerosene canisters. The newest addition was the hospital bed he'd dragged in last week, finally having had enough of the couch. He suddenly realized how ridiculous it looked, with its metal gates and the sheets he'd so carefully folded military-style. Calie was ambling around and . . .
touching
things with a faraway expression; when she stopped and smoothed the bed sheets, Perlman couldn't help flushing. C.J. didn't notice Calie's behavior—or did she act this way all the time?

Bill remembered C.J.'s question. "No." He bent back to his task of applying a topical coagulant to the puncture in his wrist. "I put him in a closet. But he's still tied up."

Both C.J. and Calie looked unsettled. "I don't know, Doc," Calie finally said. "Those things get stronger at night."

The doctor wound a fresh bandage in place. "I think it'll be okay. He's just a child, probably no more than five years old." Calie and C.J. glanced at each other and C.J. rolled his eyes. "What's the matter?" Perlman asked.

"For a doctor, you ain't very smart," C.J. said. "You ever heard of research?"

"Maybe you're just too sympathetic," Calie pointed out. "Your 'little boy' will rip you apart at nightfall unless you get rid of him." She frowned then, and her eyes darkened. "That vampire in there isn't your son, is it?" A muscle in C.J.'s jaw twitched.

Perlman shook his head, squelching the momentary pain the idea brought. "Of course not. But I don't want to kill him—it. I haven't been out much, and this is the first one I've been close to. I want to experiment on it."

C.J. whistled. "That's original." He peered at the doctor. "Say, you ain't some kind of Nazi, are you?"

Perlman had to laugh. "Not hardly. I'm as Jewish as they come." His smile was gone as quickly as it had appeared and his expression turned intense. "But I'm going to find a way to kill them off.

"Before I die, I swear I'm going to stand on Michigan Avenue at midnight and see the stars."

~ * ~

"Well, Doc, let's see what you've got." C.J.'s weapon turned out to be a crossbow, and now the teenager had it loaded and ready to fire as Perlman led them into a room and motioned to a closed door.

"He's in the closet," the doctor explained. "I put him in there temporarily so I could take care of my foot.”

“Yeah," C.J. said. "I was going to ask you about that." Perlman undid a heavy padlock on the closet door. "I jammed my toe when I . . . was pulling him out of his hiding place. It was pretty uncomfortable."

"That's not all that would have been uncomfortable," Calie said softly at his back. He grimaced, then opened the door to reveal a small supply closet and the travois, its occupant still tightly bound.

C.J. snorted. "What the hell is this?
Duct
tape?"

"There's rope, too," Perlman said defensively.

The teenager slung the bow across his shoulders, grabbed the handles of the stretcher and dragged it out. Perlman had chosen this room specifically because it was dim, but the thing beneath the plastic shifted restlessly, as if even the shadowed light caused it pain. Then it was still.

"I hate to bust your bubble," Calie said, "but I'd guess this would've held him about sixty seconds. And the closet even less."

Perlman gaped at her. "But he's so little—so
thin
!"

C.J.'s face was scornful. "You're gonna find out these things are nothing like that." He turned his wrist so they could see the time on his watch. "I hope you've got someplace else to keep it. Otherwise you're in deep shit in about three hours."

"But I do!" Bill said eagerly. "In the basement, next to the G.I. lab. I just didn't take him down because of my foot."

"Let's go, then," C.J. said, hefting the travois effortlessly. He gave Calie an exasperated glance as he ambled after the doctor. "I can't wait to see this."

Perlman didn't notice. He hobbled in front, easing the weight on his foot with a cane as he led them to a flight of stairs. "This way. You'll see I'm better prepared than you thought."

C.J. smirked and turned the stretcher to skim it down the stairs like a toboggan as they followed. Two flights below, the doctor pushed through double doors into a huge equipment-filled room. An eye-watering amount of daylight spilled from a high row of northern windows with open shades and the creature began a frenzied squirm under its dark covering.

"Quickly!" Perlman slid a two-inch iron rod free of its slots in a metal door and swung it inward, then pulled a flashlight from a wall hook and snapped it on, illuminating a flight of stairs sinking into blackness. "Down there." C.J. needed no further prompting and within moments had the stretcher down and through another open metal door, finally resting it against the back wall of a small empty room. Then he backed up and looked around curiously as the vampire quieted.

"Fallout shelter," Perlman explained. He pointed to a pattern of crisscrossed streaks on the back wall. "I pulled down the shelves and threw out the old rations. Most of it was dust anyway. I wanted a clear, secure space and this seemed perfect. The door is nearly impossible to break and I added iron bars at the top and bottom for extra strength."

"The door certainly looks strong enough," Calie agreed. "But a trapped vampire might just rip right through the walls."

Perlman waved at the room with a childlike pride. "This was built to withstand a bomb strike." His eyes found Calie's. "The inner walls are steel-sheeted and it's a fireproof building. All the floors and ceilings are reinforced concrete, and the supporting walls are concrete blocks built on steel rods."

"What's that?" C.J. motioned to a small screened box high at the juncture of two walls and the ceiling.

"A battery-powered light and home video outfit. In the morning I'll be able to see how he acted during the night."

"If it doesn't get out and kill you first," C.J. muttered. "Speaking of which, we gotta fix that window.”

“Window?"

"We took off a metal screen and broke a window to get in," Calie told him. "You won't be safe if it's not fixed."

"I never thought to ask how you got in," Perlman admitted sheepishly.

"Yeah, well, you'd better
start
, Doc." C.J. crammed another cigarette into his mouth angrily. "We've only known you an hour and you've already pulled some dumb-ass moves."

"Never mind, Dr. Bill." Calie put her hand on Perlman’s arm and he jumped. No one had touched him since Mera. "C.J. always gets antsy toward evening. But it is time to get moving."

"Okay," Perlman said hastily. "Just leave him, I guess. Or should we untie him first?" He regretted the question as soon as C.J.'s withering stare found him. "Right. Let's just close it up. I'll come back later and turn on the camera."

"I'll tell you what," Calie said. "You lock up here and we'll go fix the window. Then you can let us out.”

“Sounds good to me," the doctor said.

C.J. took a pull from his cigarette, then crushed it out. "We'll be back in half an hour."

Perlman reluctantly watched them go.

~ * ~

For an unsure quarter of an hour Perlman thought they weren't coming back. Perhaps they didn't want anything to do with him—he must have seemed like a maniac, dragging a vampire into his hiding place and stuffing it into a closet, and they only knew part of his plans. It was fortunate that they'd left him alone for a while, since he was just about explained out and C.J. had been painfully accurate in his assessment of the doctor's scant forethought. As he made his final arrangements, locked up the "vault" and readied the light and camera, it dawned on Perlman that Calie and C.J. were a total mystery to him. Where had they come from? Were there others as well?

"Hi." His heart stuttered briefly at the unexpected sound of Calie's voice. "We're back." Her smile was reassuring, but C.J. looked even more apprehensive. Perlman checked the time; they were down to under an hour before sunset.

"We thought you might like to stay with us tonight," Calie said. Her dark eyes were purposely wide and guileless. "C.J.'s not convinced your little prison will hold the prisoner."

"What?" Sudden doubt welled: in all this time, Perlman had never seen these people. Why now? And just
where
did they live? C.J. was a hard-ass, but Calie looked safe—and he felt fairly certain she could be trusted.

Then again, his decision-making today hadn't been very sound. "I don't know," he finally said.

"It'll be all right," Calie offered as C.J. peered out one of the windows. Thick clouds obscured the late afternoon sky, leaving only about forty-five minutes of good light. "Just start the camera a little earlier. You really need to be out of here. That kid's going to wake up hungry."

Perlman looked at the floor.

"Come on, Doc," C.J. asked impatiently. "What's it going to be? If you're not coming, you need to lock up behind us. We wait any longer and the vamps'll be on us like hounds."

"He's coming." Calie's voice was incredulous. He met her deep gaze unwillingly and had the troubling sensation that she had just read his mind. "Our man needs a full meal and rest tonight. Right?" C.J. frowned at her from his post at the window.

"The doctor has to replenish the blood he gave to the vampire!"

~ * ~

"This is where you'll sleep," Calie said as she showed Bill into a cubicle sandwiched between two larger rooms. He looked around doubtfully; it was closet-sized, and although there was a thick sleeping bag, pad, and pillow on the floor, he couldn't help remembering the comfortable bed at Northwestern. Even the vampire's vault was bigger than this. "I know it's small," she continued, "but I'm right next door and C.J.'s around the corner. We can find you something better tomorrow, but I thought you'd like to be near us tonight." She waited.

"It's fine," Perlman heard himself say. He was still reeling—there were at least twenty people in this place! Never had he imagined that many people were still alive in Chicago, much less in a single location—and he had been at the outside doors only this morning! Calie had come up with a bowl of warmed ravioli and insisted he wolf it down to help replace the blood he'd lost. The meal and the habit of bedding down at sunset warred with his excitement; Perlman didn't know whether to collapse from exhaustion or skip with exhilaration.