F Paul Wilson - Novel 10 (50 page)

 
          
"You
mean the undead? I'll grant you they're evil, but they hardly strike me as
transcendent."

 
          
"No?"
He was staring at his finger. "I just cut myself. Take a look."

 
          
He
laid his hand, palm up, on the table. His palm hadn't been exposed to the sun
so it was unscarred. Lacey saw a deep slice in the pad of his index finger, but
no blood.

 
          
"I
don't seem to have any blood."

 
          
Lacey
gasped as he jabbed the point of the blade into the center of his palm.

 
          
"Father
Joe!" Carol cried.

 
          
"Uh-uh,"
he said, removing the knife and waving it at her. "Just Joe, remember? I'm
not a priest anymore."

 
          
"Doesn't
it hurt?" Lacey said.

 
          
"Not
really. I feel it; it's not comfortable, but I can't call it pain." He
held up his hand. "Still no blood. And yet..." He placed the hand
over his heart. "My heart is beating. Very slowly, but beating. Why? If
there's no blood to pump, why have a beating heart?" He leaned back and
shook his head. "Will I ever understand this?"

 
          
"You
have a better chance than anyone else," Lacey said. "Obviously
something else is powering your cells, something working outside the laws of
nature."

 
          
"Which
would make it supernatural. And since there's no question that it's
evil..."

 
          
"Are
we back to that again?"

 
          
Carole
cleared her throat. "I hate to drag this conversation back to current
reality, but there is something very important we need to discuss."

 
          
Lacey
looked at her and noticed that she seemed upset. Her hands were locked together
before her on the table.

 
          
"What
is it, Carole?"

 
          
She
stared at her hands. "Blood."

 
          
Lacey
heard Joe groan. She glanced over and saw him lower his ruined face into his
hands.

 
          
"What
blood?" Lacey said.

 
          
Carole
lifted her eyes. "The blood he needs to survive."

 
          
"Oh,
that." Lacey shrugged. "He can have some of mine whenever—"

 
          
Joe
slammed his hands on the table. "No!"

 
          
"Why
the hell not? You had—what?—three or four drops and that was all you needed.
Big deal."

 
          
"The
amount is not the point! A drop, a gallon, what difference does it make? It's
all the same! I'm acting like one of them—becoming a bloodsucking
parasite!"

 
          
"They
take it by force. I'm giving this to you. You don't see the difference? It's my
blood and I have a right to do whatever I want with it. If I were giving a pint
at a time to the Red Cross to save lives you'd say what a fine and noble thing
to do. But giving a few drops to my own uncle—a blood relative, don't you know—is
wrong?"

 
          
"Your
giving isn't the issue. My taking—that's the problem."

 
          
"What
problem? Since I'm volunteering, there's no ethical problem. So if it's not
ethics, what is it? Esthetics?"

 
          
He
stared at her. "What are you? A Jesuit?"

 
          
"I'm
your niece and I care about you and I want to get the sons of bitches who did
this to you. With you as you are—part undead, part human—we might have a chance
to do real damage. But if you're going to let a little squea-mishness get in
the way—"

 
          
"Lacey!"
Carole said, giving her a warning look.

 
          
Joe
had closed his eyes and was shaking his head. "You have no idea what it's
like... to have loathed these vermin and then be turned into one. To spend
every minute of the rest of your existence knowing you are a lesser being than
you wish to be, that everything you were has been erased and everything you
hoped for or aspired to will be denied you." He opened his eyes and glared
at her. "You ... don't... know .. . what... it's ... like."

 
          
Lacey's
heart went out to her uncle. Yes, she could imagine maybe only a tiny fraction
of what he was suffering, but she couldn't let him surrender. He had to fight
back. She had a feeling that what they decided here tonight could be of
momentous importance, and it all hinged on him. That was why she had to push
him.

 
          
"I
don't pretend to. But we can't turn back the clock. You've been dealt a lousy
hand, Unk—an unimaginably lousy hand—but right now it's the only one you've
got. And it may hold some hidden possibilities that we'll never be able to use
if you fold and leave the game. I know it seems easy for me to sit here on this
side of the table say it, but it's a simple truth: you have to accept what's
happened and move on. Take it and turn it back on them. Use it to make them
pay. Make them wish they'd never heard of Father Joe Cahill. Make them curse
the day they ever messed with you. If all it takes is a few drops a day of my
blood—which I'm more than willing to donate to the cause—then where's the
downside? They tried to make you like them but something went wrong. They
failed. You're not like them—you know it and Carole knows it and I know it—and
a few drops of blood is not going to change that."

 
          
Lacey
leaned back, winded. She glanced at Carole who gave a small nod, just one.

 
          
Joe
seemed lost in thought. Finally he shook himself and said, "We'll see.
That's all I can say now .. . we'll see." He looked out at the growing
light filtering through the salt-stained picture window. "Let put this
aside and go out and watch the sunrise."

 
          
JOE
. . .

 
          
Lacey's
words tumbled back and forth through Joe's brain as he followed the two women
down to the churning water.

 
          
Accept
it and move on . . .

 
          
Easy
for her to say. But that didn't mean she was wrong.

 
          
Yet...
how do you accept being subhuman?

 
          
Turn
it against them and make them pay . . .

 
          
That
he could understand. Take this aching emptiness inside and fill the void with
rage, pack it in like gunpowder in a cartridge, then take aim at those
responsible for what he'd become.

 
          
Carole
had called him a weapon. That was what he would become.

 
          
He
joined Carole and Lacey at the waterline and stood between them. Gently he
placed a hand on each of their shoulders, Carole flinching but not pulling
away, Lacey leaning against him. He realized he loved them both, but in very
different ways.

 
          
He
noticed Carole checking her watch as the sun hauled its red bulk above the
rumpled gray hide of the
Atlantic
.
Immediately he sensed its heat, just as he'd felt the fever of the setting rays
last night.

 
          
Lacey
turned to him. "You're okay?"

 
          
"I
can tell I'm more sensitive than I ever was in life, but it's nothing I can't
tolerate."

 
          
..
. than I ever was in life. . .

 
          
How
indescribably strange to be able to say that.

 
          
Lacey
smiled. "Maybe we'll just have find you some SPF 2000 sun screen."

 
          
"I'm
just grateful I won't have to live like them—hiding in the day and crawling out
only at night. I don't know if I could take that."

 
          
They
stood for a while with the waves lapping at their feet and watched the birds
and the surf and spoke of how the undead plague hadn't affected the beauty of
the world or touched its wildlife. Humanity had borne the full brunt of the
assault.

 
          
Lacey
said, "Some of my radical ecology friends, if they're still alive,
probably think it's all for the good—the fall of civilization, I mean."

 
          
Carole
shook her head. "How could they possibly—"

 
          
"The
end of industry, of pollution, overcrowding, all that stuff they hate. No more
forests being raped, no more fluorocarbons depleting the ozone, all their
causes made moot because the undead don't seem to be into technology."

 
          
"Only
the technology that helps them keep their 'cattle' alive. Franco went on to me
about how once you've turned, your existence becomes entirely focused on blood.
All the other drives—for money, knowledge, achievement, even sex—are gone. The
undead are immune to cold and see in the dark so they have no interest in
keeping the electricity running except as far as their cattle need it to
survive. Even so, I'll bet the power will be off more than it's on. Over time I
can see the level of technology declining and the world devolving into some
sort of pre-industrial-level feudal order. They don't seem to need technology.
Or perhaps have no mind for it is better way of putting it. They already call
their human helpers 'serfs.' That will be the social order: undead lords,
serfs, and herds of human catde."

 
          
"If
only the Internet were still around," Lacey said. "We could
communicate, organize—"

 
          
"The
Internet is history, I'm afraid—with no reliable power source, few working
phone lines, and a decimated server network, it's a goner."

 
          
Joe
felt his skin beginning to tingle, as if the sand were blowing, but there was
no breeze. He glanced at the sun and thought it looked considerably brighter
than a few moments ago. Hotter too.

 
          
"Is
anyone else hot?"

 
          
Carole
and Lacey shook their heads.

 
          
"No,
not really," Carole said.

 
          
Lacey
spread her arms and lifted her face to the glow. "It feels good."

 
          
"Does
anyone mind if we go back inside? It's a little too warm for me."

 
          
He
turned and started back up the dunes; Carole and Lacey came along, one on
either side. As they neared the house, Joe felt his exposed sunward skin—the
back of his neck, his arms, his calves—begin to heat up, as much from within as
without.

 
          
With
the growing discomfort pushing him toward the house, he quickened his pace. Or
tried to. He felt unsteady. His legs wobbled like an old man's—a drunken
eighty-year-old's. Still he somehow managed to pull ahead of Carole and Lacey.

 
          
"Unk!"
Lacey cried from behind him. "Unk, your skin!"

 
          
He
looked down and saw that his skin was starting to smoke wherever the direct
rays of the sun touched it. He broke into a lurching run.

 
          
The
sun! Cooking him! Had to escape it, find shade, shelter, darkness! The very air
seemed to catch fire around him, glowing with white-hot intensity. A heartbeat
ago the house had been less than a hundred feet ahead, now he couldn't find it
through the blaze of light. And even if he could he doubted he'd reach it on
these leaden legs. His knees weakened further and he stumbled, but felt a pair
of hands grab his left arm before he could fall.