AfterAge

by Yvonne Navarro

  He swiveled his head to the right and tried to see into the building, but his eyes didn't want to work. Should he go up? He shook his head, the movement making him grin stupidly. Too much work, too many stairs. If he stayed down here, she could find him right away, though he should at least go inside so he wouldn't be an open appetizer.

  But his muscles ignored his mental commands and his jerky efforts spilled him on his right side as he dragged himself not quite through, losing a helluva lot of booze in the process. He thought his foot might still be holding the door open, but did it really matter?

  He squinted at the ceiling, wishing it were already dark. Wishing it were over.

  I can't go on, he thought sadly. Not alone. I just can't.

  "I'm waiting," he said clearly.

  He sobbed slightly.

  Then passed out.

  5

  REVELATION 22:4

  And they shall see his face. . . .

  REVELATION 11:14

  The second woe is past; and, behold,

  the third woe cometh quickly.

  ~ * ~

  "This is asinine," C.J. said impatiently. "What was Jo talking about, 'the key to the Mart'?"

  "Well," Louise said, "she did say him. And she was always saying weird stuff about the Mart." She caught him peeking at her and blushed. They were retracing yesterday's route, headed for Daley Plaza as Jo had instructed. Almost all the snow was gone, the sidewalks nearly dry.

  "Like what?" C.J. suddenly looked interested.

  "She called it the 'Building of the Damned,'" Louise answered. "She never explained herself, but half the time I didn't know what she was talking about anyway."

  C.J.'s face brightened. —‘Building of the Damned'—of course!" he exclaimed. "She's talking about the people on the third floor!"

  Louise shoved her hands in her pockets. "What people?"

  "There's probably twenty people being kept there as food by the vampires. We haven't figured a way to get them out yet."

  Louise's mouth dropped and for an instant she forgot about Daley Plaza and Jo. "Food for the vampires? Oh, God, C.J.—that's horrible!"

  "I know. But we're working on it." He scanned the sky out of habit as they came around the Daley Center, but it was a clear and beautiful blue. "That's why I was willing to make this trip, though we could be putting our time to better use. For one thing—"

  Louise grabbed his sleeve. "Look!"

  "What?" He followed her pointing finger, then sprinted to the slumped man wedged between one set of lobby doors. Not far from the guy's limp hand was a half-empty bottle of vodka that had rolled against one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, and tossed aside was a Winchester shotgun. Louise picked it up and tilted it over one shoulder.

  "Stupid fool," C.J. hissed. He nudged the man's foot. "What the hell is he doing?"

  "Hey, mister!" Louise said loudly. She shook the stranger's shoulder, but he only mumbled, his fingers clutching briefly at his missing liquor bottle.

  His head lolled to one side and C.J. snorted. "Key to the Mart, my ass. This guy's so polluted he couldn't grope his way out of a can of Coke if somebody pulled the ring for him."

  The drunken man's face, pale and framed by dark hair, was as calm and trusting as a sleeping baby's. Louise shook him again but got no response as C.J. kicked the bottle of Smirnoff's in disgust, watching it spin to the middle of the lobby and spew its contents onto the floor with a soft gurgling; the tang of alcohol immediately surrounded them. "Well?" she asked.

  C.J. gave an exasperated sigh, then bent and pushed his hands under the man's arms. "We've either got to wake this joker up or carry him all the way to Water Tower. Help me stand him up." He grunted as they hoisted the unconscious man to his feet and struggled to hold him in place.

  "What now?" Louise panted as she grappled with the man and the shotgun at the same time.

  "We walk him," C.J. answered grimly. "Yell at him, slap him, find some water and douse him—whatever it takes."

  She peered at the stranger's loose features, zonked out in blissful, oblivious dreams. "What do you suppose he'll say when he wakes up?"

  In the strange, tinted glare cast by an old restaurant window they passed, C.J.'s face was greenish and cynical.

  "He'll probably say we should've let him die."

  ~ * ~

  Five seconds after he opened his eyes and watched the ceiling tilt crazily, Alex rolled on his side and threw up. Somewhere in the midst of his retching, his brain registered that someone was holding a plastic bucket beneath his face. His stomach gave a final, painful spasm and he sagged back and closed his eyes again, groaning at the roller-coaster action in his head. Nausea threatened again and he sucked his breath in through ground teeth, in and out, in and out, until it subsided to merely a horrible case of seasickness. Gradually the swaying of the world slowed and he forced his lids open, though the sunlight streaming around him seemed to have spear-tipped fingers aimed specifically at his head. Jesus, he had a headache! His hand felt as though it weighed thirty pounds as he reached to wipe his sweat-drenched face. Three feet away was a man in a white lab coat, holding a stethoscope and watching him.

  "How do you feel?"

  The man's voice echoed in Alex's hung over hearing, and sounded angry. What was this place? For a crazy moment Alex thought he had dreamed the whole thing—the empty world, the vampires, Deb—

  Deb.

  "Where am I?" he croaked. "And who the hell are you?"

  "I'm Dr. Bill Perlman." The man came forward and used his thumb to pull Alex's eyelid up. "And you're safe."

  Alex shoved the doctor's hand away and struggled upright. "I don't want to be safe," he snapped, then grimaced as the pounding in his head increased to drum level. "What time is it? I have to get back to the Daley Center." Snatches of memory floated in his mind: stumbling along the street, forced to walk by two kids he'd wished would just leave him alone. He tried to stand but his knees buckled and he sat hard again on the couch. The sunlight pouring through the huge windows in this place was like visual barbed wire.

  Dr. Perlman folded his arms. "Why? So you can finish your little suicide attempt? It's a good thing you passed out when you did, you know. You could've died from alcohol poisoning, or been outside at nightfall if the kids hadn't found you. That was a very stupid thing to do, mister."

  "I don't remember asking for your opinion," Alex said hotly. His stomach roiled and he dropped his head between his knees until the urge to vomit passed. Finally he was able to look up. "Just show me the way out and point me in the right direction. We'll part company and be happier for it."

  "I'm afraid that's not possible," Perlman answered.

  Alex did throw up then, aiming instinctively for the bucket at the side of the couch. The stench of the vomit already in it made him retch even harder, until he thought the next thing to come up would probably be pieces of his stomach. By the time he was through he had slid to his knees and was staring stupidly at the floor. Something white crossed his field of vision: a wet washrag; he grasped it and wiped his face, thankful for its coolness against his burning skin.

  "Why can’t I leave?" he finally managed. “Am I a prisoner?"

  The older man chuckled. "Of course not. But even if you made it all the way back there without collapsing—which you won't—leaving you for the vampires now that you've been here would pose too great a danger for us."

  He looked at the doctor blearily. "Us?" The thought was ridiculously comforting; at least he wasn't alone in the hands of a madman.

  "Quite a few." The doctor watched him for a moment, then handed him a large glass and a couple of tablets. "These will start you on the way to feeling better."

  Alex obeyed automatically as a white-haired man hurried into the room. "How're you doing, son? You were in sad shape when they brought you in."

  "He could've died of alcohol poisoning," the doctor said again in a sour tone.

  The other man nodded absently and offered his hand. "I'm Buddy McDol
e. What can we call you?"

  Alex returned the handshake without enthusiasm. “Alex Nicholson."

  McDole studied him curiously. "You don't seem very happy to see us, Alex. I'd think you'd be pretty interested to find other people. What's the problem?"

  Deb.

  Alex hung his head, then an irrational hope occurred. "Say," he asked quickly, "you people haven’t been to the Art Institute, have you? Maybe last night? You don't have a woman here named Deb?"

  Perlman and McDole glanced at each other. "No, I'm afraid not," McDole finally answered. Alex's face crumbled momentarily, then his features melted once more toward stoniness.

  "You lost her, didn't you?" Something in Perlman's voice stabbed hard, and before he could stop himself, Alex went to pieces.

  ~ * ~

  The story didn't take long to tell, and sounded pitifully short and overdramatic out loud, especially considering his attempted suicide this morning. It must seem ludicrous that he had tried to kill himself over a woman he'd known only two days, yet there was a faraway look in Perlman's eyes that kept Alex from feeling like a total lunatic. At last McDole spoke. "I'm real sorry, Alex. It must've been horrible to find what you did, and I know my words probably aren't much comfort. But there are reasons to go on, there are other people, and a life for each of us to live." He nodded toward Perlman sitting quietly a few feet away. "The doctor is working on something that will kill the vampires—"

  "We hope," Perlman interrupted.

  "—off entirely. It's just a matter of getting it started and testing it out."

  In spite of his sick, tinny headache, Alex looked interested. "Something that could kill them? What?"

  “A bacteria," Perlman answered, shooting McDole an exasperated glance. "But don't let Buddy get your hopes up too fast." A hint of sarcasm crept into his voice. The work is pretty slow, plus I don't have a test subject anymore."

  "We'll find another one tomorrow," McDole assured him.

  "Another what?"

  "Vampire. The doctor has to try the bacteria on a real vampire to see if it works, and keep trying until it does," McDole explained.

  Alex frowned, the movement making his temples throb. "You actually had a vampire in the building? How did you control it?"

  Perlman shook his head. "Not here, in a bomb shelter at Northwestern. Tried the bacteria before and after feeding—"

  "You fed it!"

  "I had to see the effect feeding would have. We tossed a little bag of blood into the shelter during the day and videotaped the results." Perlman stared at the table moodily. "It was a little boy. But after two feedings he was so much stronger and dangerous that we . . . put him out of his misery this morning."

  Alex was silent as his stomach twisted in protest at the dark idea swelling in his mind. The thought had a thousand razored edges that still couldn't prevent him from reaching for the one chance that he might—

  "Deb will probably come to the Daley Center tonight," he said hoarsely. "We could catch her."

  —see her again.

  ~ * ~

  "All right." McDole looked at the group. "Are we ready? Do we have everything? We can't come back." Alex glanced at the others and tried to think logically about what he was carrying and what he would need. He couldn't; eclipsing everything was the memory of Deb as she had been yesterday morning. Would she still look the same? Would she talk to him, or would she be more beast than human? Would she even come?

  He forced his sickly, hung over thoughts back to the present: McDole, C.J., the dangerous-looking teenager who'd helped bring him here, and Elliot, a sturdy-looking blond man in his mid-twenties. Although C.J. had a compound bow, they weren't carrying much else in the way of weapons, and for that Alex was grateful. Alex had refused to bring the Winchester, but Elliot carried a gun, a heavy blue .357 to be used only in the worst emergency. Their agreed goal was to capture Deb alive as quietly as possible, then be back at Water Tower by seven in the morning so everyone here would know the group was safe. Seeing was going to be a problem; while the sky was clear, there would only be a quarter moon, not enough light to help anything. Each had a small flashlight, but they didn't dare bring anything too bright. Stuffed inside McDole's backpack were dark green trash bags and several rolls of duct tape, along with a coil of nylon rope and a folded canvas tarp. Alex tried to keep himself from picturing Deb wrapped and bound in plastic and nylon rope, then hidden under the canvas; he didn't want to know what the duct tape was for.

  McDole glanced at him and Alex nodded, then followed the men out the Michigan Avenue entrance. He would've never guessed a group of people this size could live together safely in one place, or even that this many people still lived at all. His eyes followed the marble front of the building up to its roofline and gave him a rush of dizziness as a result. The doctor had promised Alex would be well enough to be of use tonight, and also assured him that the walk itself would help clear his head. Concentrating on his steps, Alex willed himself not to think of the black side of his little dream, the chance that Deb would become nothing more than a vicious animal subjected to Perlman's experiments. Could he live with himself, knowing he had set her up for this?

  And what would he do if they had to kill her?

  6

  REVELATION 6:4

  And there went out another horse that was red;

  and power was given unto him to take peace from the earth.

  ~ * ~

  That woman was staring at her again.

  Louise shifted uncomfortably on the carpeting, then stood and went to the window. She couldn't see much of Michigan Avenue, and certainly not all the way to Daley Plaza, where C.J. and the others, including the drunken man they'd found this morning, had gone for the night. In another half hour the people here would move to the center of the building where life-signs couldn't be detected from the outside. A shudder danced along the muscles of her shoulders and she asked her question without turning.

  "Do you think they'll be all right?" Louise's voice was too loud and the six or seven people in the room started. Most bent back to their tasks, and Louise took it as a bad omen that no one offered immediate reassurance. When she turned to face them, Evelyn was knitting something for her unborn baby, fingers working steadily. The other woman, Kate, was buried in a book called Organic Gardening and absently twisting her yard-long red hair. Calie was the only one who didn't have anything else on which to concentrate except Louise, and it was she who finally answered.

  "They'll be fine." Her gaze stalled on Louise once more, then moved to a spot on the ceiling.

  "Good evening, ladies. Almost time to turn in, isn't it?" Perlman's voice was cheerful but his face was grim and tired as he limped to a seat on the couch next to Calie.

  The woman brightened. "How're you doing? Any progress?"

  He shook his head and spread his hands. "I told you it would take time. With this kind of equipment, who knows? Things'll be better when the guys come back with this vampire."

  "Why do they have to go there?" interjected Kate. The gardening book forgotten, her tone was tight with worry "Why not just catch one in our own neighborhood during the day?"

  "Because"—all eyes turned to Calie—"they hope—and they realize it’s farfetched—that the woman they're going after will recognize Alex and cooperate."

  Evelyn snorted. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. You talk as though this vampire still has a heart, or a soul, or whatever you want to call it." Her fingers snagged in her rhythm and she muttered impatiently. "Why couldn't they go in the daytime?"

  "They don't know where she sleeps," Dr. Perlman explained. "And if Alex isn't there tonight, she'll probably never be found again."

  "They should've waited and searched for her when it’s safe, anyway," said Kate. "This is way too dangerous." She looked at all of them. "What if they don't come back?"

  "They will," Calie said confidently. Her face still betrayed her concern.

  "We don't have the time to hunt all over d
owntown," Perlman said. "If there's a chance this woman will cooperate and cut some of the research time, we've got to try it."

  "What kind of work are you doing?" Louise asked timidly.

  He answered readily. "I'm trying to develop a bacteria that will kill the vampires, but so far everything is killed by the vampire instead of the other way around."

  Louise knew her next statement might damage any chance of these people accepting her, but it was too important to remain unspoken. "Why don't you . . ." Her words trailed off unwillingly. Louise didn't feel right here, didn't feel welcome, especially by Calie. Calie's behavior had deteriorated, and while she wasn't rude or mean, Calie was . . . aloof, as though she was trying to gently "cut" Louise from the herd. The doctor was as friendly as when C.J. had brought her here, yet Louise hesitated.

  "Why doesn't he what?" Kate looked at her curiously.

  "It's all right, Louise," Calie said. "No idea is too outrageous to at least discuss."

  Louise swallowed, feeling heat climb across her cheeks. "I just wondered if Jo could help somehow." Perlman rubbed the side of his nose, then cupped his chin thoughtfully. "I don't know," he said finally. "You're supposed to be open-minded," Calie chided.

  "You shouldn't discount Louise's suggestion so quickly.”

  “I'm not," the doctor protested. "l’ll be honest, I've been thinking about that since Louise's claim that Jo can heal. It’s just that . . ." He looked away.