AfterAge

by Yvonne Navarro

  Howard unlocked the door to his room, then relocked it behind him. Lowering his heavy body to the sleeping bag with a relieved grunt, he reached beneath a pile of extra blankets and slid out the little Uzi he'd found in the bottom drawer of a desk in the rear office of the lobby currency exchange. Thumbing through a Soldier of Fortune had shown a loading diagram, though Howard hadn't really understood it. But the Uzi was already fully loaded, and if he ever had to put in the extra clip, he'd figure it out. This little toy was to keep the Mart secure in the daytime rather than protect himself from the vampires, who knew nothing about it. For that, it probably wouldn't do a damned bit of good. He turned the dusty Uzi over in his hands for a while before returning it to its place under the blankets. Bored, he drummed his fingers on the floor and let his mind drift back to the hunting trip, wondering who they'd be bringing back. His tongue flicked over his lips.

  He hoped it was a woman.

  8

  REVELATION 11:7

  The beast that ascendeth out of the

  bottomless pit shall make war against them. . . .

  ~ * ~

  It had stopped snowing an hour ago, and now they stood at the stairs descending to the entrance they had used last night. Behind the group of nightwalkers the snow was like a freshly laid carpet of purity marred only by the measured dips of their footprints.

  "Why can't we use the door by the auditorium, or the front entrance?" Rita complained. "Why get all filthy again?"

  "She may be a human but she still has ears," Gregory said disdainfully. Rita resisted the urge to slap him, knowing Anyelet watched them both.

  "This way is safer," Anyelet said quietly.

  Gabriel stepped forward. "Let's go." After dribbling a little lubricant on the hinges, he and Vic removed the already-loosened metal door and set it aside, then motioned for the others to enter the dank storage room. It was easier than Rita had anticipated; she hadn't been pleased with the oil and grime caked on her hands the previous evening and would have preferred to leave the trip entirely to the others. On the other hand, they all stood to benefit from the capture of another human, and survival made sharp motivation. But something about their unseen prey still spooked her; if the woman left that kind of firepower behind, what did she carry with her?

  The light in the storage room was as poor as before, though retracing their route through the jagged, shrouded piles was easy, the elevator doors heavy but not as difficult. When they reached the double glass doors leading to a long room filled with the moldering remains of ancient clothes and weapons, Rita finally voiced her doubts. "How do we know she's even here?" she demanded as she looked distastefully at her hands, once more covered in dirt and oil from the elevator cables.

  "I can smell her," Gabriel said promptly.

  "That's what you said last night," Rita snapped.

  Gabriel smiled, unperturbed. "Yes, but look here." He pointed at the doors. "They've been relocked."

  "It's a better job this time. It's going to make some noise getting through," Vic commented. He looked at Anyelet. "Faster to just break the glass."

  "Do it."

  Vic nodded and without further warning punched one panel with a lightning-fast thrust; the glass exploded and even Rita could admire the muscular vampire's strength and speed. They climbed through the frame, ignoring the fragments of glass that tugged at their clothes and tinkled to the floor, then they were in the midst of an array of medieval armor and weapons, swords, maces, other things with straps and chains like nothing Rita had ever seen. She paused as an idea occurred to her. "Why don't we take some weapons?" she proposed. "We know she has a gun." Gregory nodded in agreement.

  Anyelet's glance was withering. "We shouldn't need weapons against a human, Rita. Must you always be so pampered?" She waved her hand. "There are five of us to one woman—isn't that enough of a challenge? None of you have the faintest idea of what it's like to hunt for yourselves or die." She scowled. "It's time you learned." The Mistress moved on and Rita looked to Gabriel pleadingly, but he only shrugged and kept going.

  Another firmly locked door waited at the far end, more noise that Rita was convinced would warn the woman of their presence. Surely she had left by now—who in their right mind would stay? Even with Gabriel's so-called "nose" it would take hours to search just one wing of this monstrous building—unless they walked into an ambush first. Another room like the weapons gallery, filled with more of humanity's faded history: objets d'art from the Far East, the Orient and Islam, exotic figures with elongated eyes and brilliant colors. Rita barely glanced at them; they depicted nothing but more subcultures of a species that was already passing into extinction. They slid silently around the last display case and followed Gabriel to the left; he turned one hundred and eighty degrees at the final wall separating them from the Arthur Rubloff Auditorium and Rita immediately sensed the difference in the darkness as they crept to the closed doors that were the final barrier. It took only an instant to figure it out: beneath the line of the metal doors, a laser-thin light showed. Sudden nerves prickled at the base of Rita’s neck.

  "What's that smell?" Vic whispered.

  "Candle flame," came Gabriel's reply. "I don't like this."

  "Let's do it," Gregory hissed eagerly. "I'll go first."

  "No." Anyelet stopped him. The Mistress's gaze paused on Rita and she tensed, then Anyelet motioned to Vic, the movement a blur of India ink in the near-black shadows. "Vic will take us in." The two stared at each other for perhaps ten seconds as the rest of them watched, baffled, then Vic stepped forward and wrapped his massive hands around the door handles. He tugged gently but the doors didn't move; he tried again with a little more strength, and this time they made a quiet, drawn-out sound like the groan of an old man in uneasy sleep.

  "Ready?" He didn’t bother to whisper.

  They all nodded. The muscles in his arms and back swelled suddenly and he ripped the doors open in a scream of tormented metal and erupting plaster.

  The light from dozens of candles placed around the door blinded them momentarily, and instead of the swift entrance they'd intended, all five hesitated. The woman stood center-stage, holding a large, strange-looking weapon that was nothing like the shotgun Gabriel had discovered under her bed. "Oh, fuck!" Gabriel screamed as a harsh ratcheting filled the air and the woman yelled something Rita couldn't quite hear.

  Thunder filled the night.

  9

  REVELATION 17:16

  These shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.

  ~ * ~

  Deb watched five of them flow into the auditorium, casting a pall through the warm light like silent, oiled snakes. She'd lit the candles intentionally, preferring to see those who came for her, their faces, their number, their expressions—did they still have souls? She wished she could search each pair of eyes to see if any visage of humanity remained.

  And so here they were at last, her future, her fate. Two women, three men, all except for one lean and dark, all with eyes that glittered like bloodstones across the expanse of the room. The first to enter shared the same red gaze as his companions but was the only one with any kind of bulk, tall and swollen with muscles; his weight easily doubled her own. She would have little time to defend herself; startled by the flickering light, they were already splitting up, moving with frightening speed.

  "Come on in," Deb called cheerfully. Beneath her deadly calm she felt the comforting pull of the shoulder strap as she hoisted the Streetsweeper into position. The noise of the shotgun pumping slugs into the magazine drowned out most of her next words.

  "I've been expecting you!"

  She opened fire.

  She tried to swing the Streetsweeper in a semicircle but the eruption of the first five slugs hammered her off her feet and flung her backward. Only the curtained wall kept Deb from landing on her back and she lost precious seconds just sitting there, the room a throbbing fog of yellow sparkles, her ears filled with a deafening roar undercut by enraged screams. Then she wa
s on her knees, screaming herself and grappling with the cumbersome shotgun as she propelled another round into the magazine. The smell of gunpowder was choking, the weapon already fire-hot in her hands.

  Something snarled from the right-hand steps and streaked toward her; she swung and squeezed the trigger. The shotgun pounded against her body again and black spots threatened to blot out her vision; she kept at it, taking the force of the semiautomatic and ignoring the faraway crack along the right side of her chest. Between the dancing screen of dots that had become her eyesight Deb saw one of the vampires, a young man with sand-colored hair, take two hits in the face. His head exploded, and in spite of the agony pouring through her chest and arms, Deb felt a momentary thrill of vindication. Someone else wailed as the vampire's body did a macabre jig and crumbled to the polished wooden floor, one outflung hand still clutching spasmodically by Deb's leg. She staggered to her feet and kicked it away.

  "Come ON!" she howled, then sobbed when her own body betrayed her and sent her back to her knees as she struggled to prime the gun for the third time. Somewhere in the ocean of gray seats a woman was screeching wildly.

  "Kill her! Kill her! Look what she's done to my FACE!"

  Another woman shouted orders, something about going to the right, and at last Deb found the strength to cock the Streetsweeper. Nearly sprawled on the stage, Deb dragged the shotgun wearily to her left, where another young man was creeping up the side steps, inching along like a giant lizard. He dived for the floor when she sent a burst of firepower at him. She clawed at the weapon, wanting to arc it from front to rear, but she was so tired, and the Streetsweeper was so damned heavy; the tendons in her shoulders and back trembled and twisted into living things with needle fingers beneath her skin. Deb could no longer lift the gun and barely managed to slide it across the floor by its strap as she scooted backward. The same vampire jerked below stage level yet again as the barrel clattered toward him and she groped for the trigger.

  Should she pump another round? Her mind was a bleary swirl of fragmented sounds and shapes that moved far too fast. Everything was in motion at once; she'd killed at least one of the vampires and wounded another. But hadn't there been five? Of those, one was the guy who kept popping his head above the stage with reptilian quickness as he worked closer; if she didn't hit him soon, he'd simply leap and be on her. And the two women—Deb could hear one still yowling like an injured alley cat while the other called to someone named "Vic."

  Deb started. Tracking the progress of the lizard-vampire had slipped her into some sort of semiconscious trance. Her vague calculations totaled only four—where the hell was that big guy?

  He hit her from behind like a steamroller.

  10

  REVELATION 6:8

  And Hell followed with him.

  ~ * ~

  A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his temple, slow and thick, as though a heavy drop of blood had dripped from the ceiling. As it disappeared into his hairline, Alex felt another creep along the trail left by the first; twenty-five degrees in here and he was lying on a perspiration-soaked sleeping bag.

  Enough, Alex decided. He crawled from the bag and stepped cautiously to the door of the small office in which he had stayed last night with Deb. He was fully clothed; last night had been the sole exception to that since he'd decided a year ago last October that he'd live longer if he "disappeared" from what was left of the rest of the world. Now he crept to a window in the corner that was partially blocked by a bookcase stuffed with dust-covered law books; it would hide him on the left but not block his view of the plaza below. Still, he knew not to get too close to the glass; he hadn't made it this long by being careless. The world beyond the building was a cold, uniform gray, bleak and not at all beautiful in its winter fury; the plaza itself seemed to float like some stagnant pool long since leeched of color. Although it was still snowing, Alex thought he could sense a letup in the storm's energy.

  He wondered what Deb was doing. Was she cold, lonely—did she even miss him? After all this time, knowing her and loving her last night was like dangling water in front of a man who hadn't realized he was dying of thirst. His last feeling of warmth had been kissing his parents good-bye as they left to visit his mom's older brother in Utah—another foolish mistake. In the midst of the disappearances that were sweeping the city, he’d never heard from them again. He should have kept them close, as well as the teenage twins, Daryl and Jeff, and his . . .

  Grandmother.

  Bitter guilt flared. He hadn't told Deb about that. While she had killed a man in self-preservation, it had been a stranger, at least justifying the act somewhat. His grandmother, snarling with a newfound hunger, had come home to her son's house for her first meal, and thank God his parents hadn't been there to witness the foul-smelling carnage as he'd chalked up his first kill on the machete. He'd almost given up then: Daryl and Jeff would be coming; they had telephoned the evening before to tell him they were going out to look for several missing friends. Standing over the disintegrating mass that had been his own flesh and blood, Alex had known that another couple of hours would bring the "Disaster Duo," as he'd called the twins since grammar school, home for dinner. It was his responsibility to stay and release them from the hell in which they'd become trapped.

  Alex fled.

  There had been no one to see his shame then, but now? He just wanted to get the hell out of this building and go to Deb, and be damned with that stupid promise he'd made.

  A break in the wind offered a suddenly unobstructed view of the plaza, and goose flesh rippled up Alex's spine at the footprints stretching across the snow, stumbling blotches interspersed with larger holes and loops, as if the walker had fallen more out of laziness than weakness. Alex inched closer to the glass, holding his breath to keep from fogging its cold surface, straining for a better view. The wind gusted again, then stopped; before the next wave of snow could slap the glass, Alex quickly followed the tracks across the plaza until they vanished directly below and out of his range of vision. He cracked his knuckles thoughtfully, mentally rechecking his lockup this afternoon. Another blast of snow against the glass pulled his attention back outside. Beneath the howling of the storm Alex thought he heard something else then, a fluttering—

  He flung himself to the floor just as a black, tattered creature resembling a man-sized bat clawed and clung its way across the window directly outside the spot in which Alex had been standing only a second earlier. Was it the same one that had terrified them the night before, checking its territory like a starving wolf? Alex had no intention of tapping on the glass and asking.

  Alex lay with his face and hands hugging the icy floor. Jesus! he thought as his heart whammed in his chest. If this is what I'm going through, what's happening to Deb?

  11

  REVELATION 12:4

  And the beast stood before the woman for to devour her.

  REVELATION 22:12

  And, behold, I come quickly . . .

  ~ * ~

  Well, this is a fine mess, Vic thought in disgust. He extricated himself from the unconscious woman's legs and stood; the thick, offensive smell of gunpowder crawled up his nose and he waved an ineffective hand in front of his face. Gregory's corpse, now a headless lump of slowly melting flesh, still twitched a few feet away, and already Gabriel was scrambling across the stage, his expression a study of slavering eagerness.

  "Just stay the fuck away!" Vic snarled. Rita staggered down the aisle, screeching and ricocheting from one side to another like a pinball being slapped about by mechanical flippers. Her once darkly exquisite face had taken an upward slug in its cheekbone, destroying her right eye and ear and leaving pieces of her skull an exposed and dripping horror. Her head had a new and impossible shape that now sloped toward the front of her gore-encrusted blouse.

  "What do I look like?" Rita whined and clutched at Anyelet. The Mistress pulled away in distaste and hurried toward Vic and the woman, leaving Rita to moan against a velvet-covered seat, har
dly glancing at Gregory's body. "Is she dead?" Anyelet asked. She nudged the woman with one toe.

  "No way." Gabriel was panting outright. "Can I do her?" His lips stretched and saliva trailed in glistening strands from his top to bottom teeth like a sparkling spider web.

  "Kill her!" Rita's scream rose from the seats below. "Kill her and leave her for the sun!"

  Anyelet ignored them both and nodded at the weapon that had killed Gregory. "What is this thing?"

  Vic picked it up. "Some sort of semiautomatic shotgun, I think. Never saw one like it before." He lowered it back to the floor. "Pretty damned effective." He looked at Anyelet. "What about Gregory?"

  "Leave him," she said flatly. "I've no time for dead meat."

  “And the woman?" Gabriel asked again.

  "Kill—"

  "Shut up!" Anyelet snapped. "I'll make that decision!”

  “What's to decide?" asked Gabriel. "You want to breed her?"

  Vic tensed. The woman at his feet was far lovelier than anyone at the Mart; what would she do when Howard tried to rape her? Howard might kill her trying—and then, of course, there was the mutilated Rita, still keening in the background like an old woman. He cleared his throat to regain Anyelet's attention. "Don't we need to replace Gregory?" he asked. "There's only a few of us left." He couldn't believe his own suggestion, yet how could this woman, who had fought so valiantly to survive, be shut away and used like some weekly menu selection?