The 1000 Souls (Book 1): Apocalypse Revolution (9 page)

Malcolm in particular fascinated Bertrand.

"You've really recovered from that flu you had last month," Bertrand mentioned one evening as Malcolm sat, reaching for his headset and booting up his computer. There was a bit of blood on his collar and cheek, but Bertrand decided against telling the man he had cut himself shaving, although it did look fresh.

"Oh, I'm having fun these days." Malcolm cracked his skinny knuckles, getting ready to enter his password. "Remember that goth chick I told you about? Oh, she keeps me very busy." He gave a wicked smile, and Destiny—rising from her desk to see him over the divider—gave him a sly grin.

"Not as busy as I'd keep you, big boy."

"Anytime, baby."

Malcolm tapped in his password, and Bertrand—close to Malcolm's chair while putting on a leather jacket—noted the keystrokes, recognizing the word even though he missed a couple of letters: Ripper.

Bertrand grabbed his pack from under his desk, his cheeks burning because Destiny's innuendo had caught his desire. She was petite and shapely, her skirt short and her blouse buttoned down, and Bertrand would definitely like to know more intimately what she meant by "busy." Joyce had been distant since the night of the murder, sticking strictly to their professional relationship and never available for coffee. Their only conversation involved topics like cardio and exercise machines, training schedules and goals.

"Well I'm off to hit the gym," Bertrand said. "I'll leave you two alone to discuss how busy you both want to be." He hurried for the elevator—still surprised with his newfound frankness in conversation. He also wondered why he had spied on Malcolm's disturbing choice of password.

Just before the elevator doors closed, Destiny and Malcolm exchanged a glance and both looked in Bertrand's direction. If Destiny weren't part of the day shift, Bertrand would have sworn she was in the secret club of night people.

Jeff caught up to him in the lobby.

"You're a changed dude, Bert. Look at you: pack over your shoulder, eager to get to the gym. Joyce tells me she's even got you jogging. Next thing you know she'll have you entering the marathon."

Bertrand pushed through the revolving door and waited for Jeff on the far side.

"I'll have to lose another twenty or so pounds before I think about something that crazy," he said when Jeff emerged.

"But you have lost weight." Jeff fell in step beside him as they headed for the 'L' station. Cabs arrived and departed in the chaos of after-dark rush hour, the headlights and taillights adding the confusion of hurrying people, some heading into the office towers for night shifts while others fought over cabs to go home, many apparently reluctant to take public transit.

Bertrand tried not to look too proud about his weight loss. After all, it would be a long time before he would approach Jeff's lean physic, and he'd never be that tall. "I've lost eight glorious pounds. If I'm dehydrated, nine."

Jeff slapped him on the back. "You the man. I know Fish is impressed. He told me the other day that you've got a natural talent for fighting—a focus and intensity. I was actually jealous."

"Dude." Bertrand couldn't restrain a good laugh. "That's nuts. I'm not even a yellow belt and you creamed me in the sparring match yesterday. I don't think you have much—"

A scream ripped through the street. A woman lunged out a cab and rushed across the sidewalk, turning to put her back to the window of Starbucks and stare back at in horror, one hand over her mouth and a finger pointing back at the cab.

"What the fuck?" Bertrand ran forward, his whole being demanding he save her from the terror in the cab. The back seat waited empty for the next passenger, but something about the driver's posture looked slumped and twisted—a heart attack?

Bertrand reached for the passenger-side front door but fell back when the door swung open too easily. Jeff caught him and pushed him back to vertical.

Bertrand and Jeff both bent to look across front seat to the cab driver. Blood coated the man's shirt and trousers, and his head tipped back uncomfortably far. A large chunk of his neck under his right ear had been sliced out.

"Holy crap." Bertrand stood. "Right here in the street."

Jeff already had his cell phone out and was punching 911. They both stepped back from the cab, but a garbage bag stuck to Bertrand's shoe. He grabbed it to pull it off, lifting his leg in the process to reach it.

Jeff grabbed his arm. "Watch out! It's covered in blood."

That was why it was sticky. It was too late for Bertrand's right hand, the cab driver's blood smearing on his fingers. He succeeded pulling the bag off his shoe, but as it fluttered to the ground he noticed something strange.

"Look." Bertrand pointed at the bottom of the bag. "You know how people cut a bag to wear as an emergency rain coat? Someone's cut the bottom for a head and the sides for arms."

"Harsh." Jeff stepped back from the cab, looking from the bag to the driver. "Someone planned this and didn't want to get covered in his blood. Someone knew what they were doing, as if they'd done it before."

"Someone." But Bertrand was thinking about Malcolm, the blood on his collar was bad enough, but as he had typed in his password his finger nails had caught Bertrand's attention almost as much as the password. They were surprisingly dirty for a neat young man who liked clubbing, rims of brown outlining the shape of the nails and under the ends.

Jeff brought him back to the present. "Bert," he said, his voice emotionless in his shock, his eyes still on the taxi driver's bloody corpse. "I know a guy who sells guns. I think you should pay him a visit.

Bertrand nodded, his eyes going back to the blood. "Yeah. Long overdue. I need some way to defend myself."

Bertrand had never been a big fan of swimming, not just because his bulk moved reluctantly through the water, but because he disliked chlorine. Joyce had overcome his reluctance by pointing out that the lap pool at the club was a saltwater pool, so only a fraction of the chlorine was required.

Every evening after his workout for a couple of weeks now, he had donned his swimsuit—a modest one with shorts-like legs that went almost to his knees—and splashed several laps with his imperfect front crawl, amazed that he had the energy for it at all after his workout or karate.

He reached the end of a lap this evening to see running shoes and shapely bare legs, causing him to stop and remove his fogged goggles. Joyce stood near the end of the lane, her black miniskirt incongruous with her footwear, her sleeveless green top lacy and alluring.

"Nice going, Bert. You know I've never seen anyone at this club work so hard and lose so much weight so fast."

Bertrand grabbed the ladder and heaved himself out of the water, not just a little proud. She'd noticed he'd lost weight! While he was not in the running to be an underwear model, he did love the sleeker feel as the water sloshed off his torso. He had even dared to look at himself in the mirror of the change room a few times, amazed that his belly and love handles could shrink so much in just a month, although he had to admit that he was still overweight.

Bertrand grabbed his towel from a hook on the tile wall and began to dry his hair.

"Well it's all thanks to you." He paused to shake water out of his right ear. "I wouldn't have known where to begin."

"Thanks, but you did all the work. I've watched guys come in here, bragging and over lifting, showing up four and five nights in a row, then twice a week—usually making excuses about pulled muscles—then once a month, then gone. No commitment. No guts. You have to be in this for the long haul."

"Well, like Stu says, I got to be ready for Judgment Day. Did Jeff tell you what we saw tonight?"

"Taxi driver murdered in broad daylight? Yeah, and I bet it won't be on the news."

They exchanged a knowing glance. Just like the man they'd found dead. A life extinguished without the world the wiser.

"So, Bert." Joyce avoided his eyes as she spoke, instead gazing at the far end of the empty pool room. "Like, I'm not asking you on date here, but I want to check out this club called Goth Knights." She finally looked at him to see how he was taking this invitation. "Thing is, I hear it's a bit of a rough crowd, so I don't want to go alone, but apparently some rock-star-like guy's going to make an appearance tonight. So I was wondering if you'd like to go."

"Go dancing?" Bertrand had danced in college, but only when it was absolutely necessary and only because he had hoped that if he gyrated with sufficient bravado his date would take his virginity.

"Yeah." Joyce's cheeks had noticeably reddened. "Yeah, we'll have to dance so that we don't stick out like tourists, but I'm not asking you to take ecstasy and get into the whole clubbing scene. So, you in?"

Bertrand didn't want to go, didn't want to head anywhere but his basement, where he'd moved his bed a month ago after putting bars on the windows and a steel door at the top of the stairs. He couldn't sleep at Nolan's every night. The guy was half-crazed and his conspiracy theories stretched over the top: even the president was a cult worshipper and a blood drinker. His blog, however, was racking up a fantastic number of hits. His theories had struck a chord with a large number of people.

But Goth Knights, that was the club Malcolm always talked about with fervent passion. Was it more than just a dance club?

"Sure," said Bertrand. "I don't get out much though, so I'll dance, but it won't be pretty."

Joyce barked a laugh. "I promise not to hold it against you. I'll wait out front."

The blood-red twisting neon spelled out
Goth Knights
, and the lineup down the sidewalk promised at least an hour's wait. Joyce paid the taxi driver, a Sikh judging by the turban, who accepted the generous tip and squealed the wheels of the cab in his haste to leave. The man had been reluctant to drive into this run-down industrial neighborhood, and it wasn't hard to see why: several buildings along the way—proud factories from the 1940s—were burnt-out shells now, their walls often surviving the conflagrations that consumed their innards, proving that they were true brick buildings built to last. The building with the club was a luckier version, having somehow avoided the flames of insurance fires long enough to become useful again, but the tall windows of the second floor were painted black, and the frantic light of the club leaked out only through scratches and gaps. The pounding music had no regard for the glass barrier, and Bertrand doubted the club could have survived the noise complaints in a more residential neighborhood.

"That looks hopeless." Bertrand pointed to the length of the line of waiting people. "I guess there aren't any other bars close to here?"

"Not if you're looking for chicken wings and beer." Joyce took his hand and led him across the street. "Let's give it a try anyway. A guy I used to train told me the other day that I could get in no problem. He said just go straight to the front of the line."

A doorman behind the velvet rope at the head of the line stood tall and bald, a heavy black trench coat emphasizing the bulk of his shoulders, multiple piercings on his eyebrows, nose and lip testifying that he had a high tolerance for pain. His expression indicated that he probably didn't mind dishing it out.

"Back of the line." He folded his hands back like a soldier at ease, but Joyce walked right up close.

"We haven't evolved," she said. "We're still monos. A friend told me that's a front-of-the-line pass."

The doorman looked down and bent close to Joyce's neck. The giggling crowd in the line fell silent. Bertrand grabbed Joyce's arm, getting ready to pull her away if the doorman moved to any of his pockets with his hands. Surely the man wouldn't cut her neck open right there in front of all the witnesses? But Bertrand was taking no chances. He should've asked the taxi to wait with the meter and engine running.

"Relax, dude." The doorman's left eye fixed on Bertrand even though his nose was still buried in Joyce's delicate neck. "I can tell she's telling the truth. Have fun and buy booze."

He unclipped the velvet rope, his nose still close to Joyce, shamelessly breathing in her fragrance one more time before he straightened and stepped aside, waving them through the door and up the stairs.

"Yum, yum!" called someone in the crowd, hoots and cheers rising to dim the music.

Joyce nodded her thanks and headed through the door and up the stairs, Bertrand hurrying to keep up and averting his eyes when he saw a flash of panties under the miniskirt.

"Joyce!" Bertrand had to shout to be heard over the music as they reached the second floor. Strobe lights dazzled him when they emerged into the rave hall, a large converted warehouse with heavy squared columns of timber supporting the ceiling. The walls were painted black, except where large mirrors reflected back the lights and the crowd, the lasers and disco balls filling in the dark when the strobes weren't pulsing with the music.

"Joyce!" Bertrand had to scream in her ear to be heard. "There's something very weird about this place. We shouldn't stay."

"I know." Joyce grabbed his shoulders and put her lips close to his ear. "But we need to know what's going on, and around here this is the center of things. My friend said they won't hurt us here 'cause they don't want any attention drawn to the club."

"Don't want any attention?" Bertrand waved at the crowd. "Look at these people!"

The dancers gyrated to heavy Goth music, an ominous voice ranting about the end of the world, electric base and pounding drums mixing with orchestrated voices that backed-up the male vocal. People were dressed in leather and fishnet stockings with shorts or simply black underwear, sometimes on the men as well as the women. Generous tattoos covered bare skin on backs and arms, on cleavage and torsos. Some men danced topless, and to Bertrand's shock, so was at least one woman.

"I'll get us a drink," shouted Joyce. "Just try and relax and keep an eye for this guy who's supposed to show up."

"Wait, I have no idea what he looks like."

"Apparently he stands out in a crowd."