“Why do I?” I shot back just as angrily. “Why the hell are you freaks chasing me? What did I ever do to deserve such an honor?”
The question took him aback. If the man could have thrown his head back and howled with laughter, I think he would have. As it was, all he managed was a dry chuckle.
“You matter because in the genetic lottery, you’re one step away from the jackpot winner. The ancients spoke of blood as carrying traits from father to son, mother to daughter.”
A long spasm of coughing wracked his body. When it finally passed, he struggled to raise his dangling hand to his mouth. He made it, barely, and wiped weakly at his lips.
“It’s not blood. It’s the right combination of genes. Yours takes thousands of years to replicate in the exact sequence. Your offspring will command the same power as your ancestor, the same power you hold to a degree because you’re so close.”
I sat back, mind racing. Daniel had said I was the father of the next keeper. Keeper of what? This man knew. He not only knew, but feared me and the reason came clearer with each passing second.
“You’re dying,” I said, “but there’s no next body. This is the end of the road for you, isn’t it? Because of me. Somehow, I’ve truly killed you. Once this body dies, you will be gone, forever.”
He stared at me, his eyes icy and unreadable. “Maybe.”
“How can it be maybe? You just said that I hold the same power to a degree. You’re dying and you’re afraid.”
“Because I can offer you life in exchange for life,” he said simply. “You have the sickness. I can take it away.”
“In return for what?” I asked, mind turning back to every deal with the devil ever inked. “Just so you know, you pull out some piece of paper, want me to sign the bottom of it in blood, and I’m gonna finish the job right now.”
A crooked smile tugged as his mouth. “I don’t want your soul, William, just your blood. Mine will heal you. Yours will save me. I will give you life in exchange for my own.”
“I’ve already had your blood all over me,” I said flatly. “Forgive me for doubting you, but I don’t feel any better.”
The hairless eyebrows rose. A crazy grin splintered skin in every direction into a massive maze of wrinkles. “Ahh, my poor William, you don’t understand. The process is not quite that simple. The disease was made for your bodies. It must be fooled.”
“Translate that for me into real terms,” I said hoarsely.
“It means you must die in order to live. The moment your breath stops, the disease will begin to fail. All you need to finish the job is enough of me to confuse it when you return.”
I stared at him. Daniel’s vision drifted across my mind. I knew what shade meant. I’d live if I took the deal. If I didn’t, my ghost would walk alongside Jessie’s. The instant that thought crossed my mind, another outcome presented itself. Shade might not mean a question mark hung over the doorways to life and death, but that I would somehow be different or not quite human anymore. Faust traded his soul for sex and knowledge. I had no intention of trading mine so I could live long enough to be eaten by something else. I needed more and maybe, I knew how to get it.
“How do I know you’re not lying?”
He did throw his head back and laugh that time. Tendons bulged in his neck at the pain, but it didn’t stop him. The howl of glee that echoed through the station left goose bumps standing on my arms.
“Why, William, of course you have my word on it,” he cackled insanely.
“Of course, I do,” I said to no one in particular.
Turning, I motioned for Keith and Tyler to join me. We pushed the old sofa down the hall, but the situation turned ugly closer to my room. The couch wouldn’t fit through the door without turning it up on its end. That meant lifting Gorgol clear.
I didn’t care so much about the pain it would cause him. I didn’t want to touch the bastard. The fact that I’d carried him through the gloom with that evil, ugly face so close to my neck left me shivering at the thought. It had to be done though. I couldn’t leave the man in the main room for the watch to deal with all night. In a worst case scenario, I’d sleep outside the door. I’d hear him if he called for help and the door opening would wake me. None of the other options in front of me held any appeal.
I did it, skin crawling the entire time. The other two wrestled the sofa inside and slid it against the far wall. I carried the man in and laid him down. Keith and Tyler beat a hasty retreat as soon as I was clear.
Gorgol laid in the darkness, staring at me. I turned to escape those strange and evil looking eyes. He spoke just before I closed the door, the single word sliding across the room in a hiss.
“Wee lee um?”
I leaned against the door frame and sighed. Either the effort or the man himself had brought the churning feel back to my stomach.
“What?”
“Don’t you want to know?”
I lifted my head and looked across the room. “Know what?”
His lips pulled back to reveal his spiked teeth. “Everything.”
Chapter XXVI - Decisions
I needed to see Elsie first. I found her in the main room with the rest, huddled around the table with a kerosene lamp burning in the middle. Keith had played electrical wizard with the lighting and had one of the flashlight beams spilling light out against the ceiling. I never ceased to be amazed at how that simple act provided so much indirect lighting.
She looked up when I walked in. I pointed to the back door.
“We just smoked, Hill William,” she said with a frown.
I headed for the kitchen without responding, dug out the whiskey, and walked out the door by myself. About two ounces of Johnny Walker later, the old woman stepped out and pulled her shawl tight around her shoulders. The wrap proved to be the only piece of clothing she had on that belonged to her. The dark blue sweatpants had been Jessie’s. The flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, had come from Joshua’s belongings. I sighed at the thought of how far we’d fallen. It wasn’t enough that we had to scavenge off people we didn’t know. We scavenged off our own dead.
She pulled out a cigarette and offered the pack to me. I shook my head. Elsie looked confused. “Why are we out here then?”
“I need Daniel,” I said without preamble. “Gorgol is lying.”
She lit the cigarette and eased down on the crate beside me. “I say this all the time, but you know how young he is. That thing in there will tear him to shreds.”
“And he will die if I don’t use him,” I said brutally. The time for debate had ended. We stood at a crossroads and both highways sucked. One had the Grim Reaper as the bus driver. The other had Gorgol in the driver’s seat. I needed to neutralize his knowledge and his abilities somehow. I didn’t know how many lies he’d told, but I knew the big one.
Gorgol wasn’t dying. He was getting better. By the time I’d left him in the little room, he’d been speaking in almost normal tones and shoving himself up on one elbow. The rate he seemed to be healing astounded me. Anyone else, anyone human, would have been exhausted by the move, much less by the conversation. Yet, truth lay in his words somewhere, and it revolved around me. Daniel had told me that I would father the next Keeper. While I had no idea what a Keeper might be, Gorgol did and if fear lay anywhere, it squatted right in the middle of what could be. A second part of the maybe’s centered on my grand-pappy forty times removed killing one of his kind. If he could and I was that close in genetic terms, then I might be able to render the same moment of finality. The thing lying in my room didn’t come across as the most patient being in the world. He needed me. He feared me. I needed to know why and how to use it.
And I had no time.
He would get better. I wouldn’t. In two days, I would be bedridden, maybe half out of my mind, maybe even a threat to the extended family we’d become at the station. I couldn’t let it happen. I just didn’t know how to stop it. I didn’t think Daniel did either, at least not fully. What he might be able to
do was tell me when the man lied. I had a feeling that negotiating any deal with him would be like walking through a minefield laid half a century earlier where the click under your feet might be a dud or the last sound you ever heard.
Negotiations occur between positions of equality, not between victor and vanquished. I needed a position of power. Daniel could provide it.
Gorgol’s offer of life carried as much of a threat as The Fever’s promise of death. The idea of somehow blending genetic markers flew against every venture Hollywood had ever thrown at the silver screen and every survival instinct honed on African plains at a time when humanity could barely stand upright, much less reason with any acuity. He didn’t come across as savior or benefactor. Dealing with him didn’t carry the same relief as stumbling through a smoke-filled building with flames licking at your back and finally seeing the Exit sign. It felt like lying down and sticking my head in an alien pod, having my brain sucked dry, and emerging hours later to join the army of slack-jawed zombies I’d been trying to avoid all along. Nothing about the man impressed me as the Calvary finally crossing the hill and racing to the rescue. He reminded me of a stone-faced doctor brandishing a gigantic needle and telling me it would all be better soon.
For all I knew I could be stepping up and walking straight into Evil Spirit Battle Tactic 302, where the notes ran something like: When captured by a superior force, pretend to come to their aid. Confuse the issue with historical crap no one remembers. Place it in an age where they have no written records. Then offer hope and tell them that what amounts to a blood transfusion will not only cure their ills, but will erase all their other problems too! Once you have them in line, sit back and watch them die.
Laying it all out in front of me didn’t help either.
Item one - I had few truths. A few weeks before, Gorgol had occupied one of two realms. People who believed in the existence of creatures like him were either totally lost in fantasy or had a few bolts missing upstairs. Even considering a deal with the man left me feeling like I needed to dig a wrench out of Angel’s toolbox and tell Keith to perform brain surgery. The act might not reassure anyone else, but I’d be happy knowing I still had a brain.
Item two - I was sick. Regardless of whatever else might be true, my chances of surviving the Fever stood somewhere around a depressing twenty-five percent. If a plus existed in that prognosis, I’d spend a good bit of that time unconscious.
Item three - I had Daniel. Whether or not the boy belonged on the side of truth might have been up for debate if I’d been having the discussion with someone else, but he’d proved himself correct enough that I believed him. Daniel had told me already that I didn’t belong in the land of the living after The Fever. He hadn’t been clear as to where I did belong, but not living provided enough motivation to search for alternatives.
On the other side, lay the unknowns. The cure sounded worse than the disease, at least up front. My brain couldn’t reconcile the concepts of dying and getting better in the same train of thought. Everything I’d ever known about diseases and sickness in general, demanded that the outcomes be mutually exclusive of one another. You either recovered or you died, not both.
The biggest of the unknowns held sway over all the others. Living and dying took a backseat to a simple answer that might very well decide the issue for me. No birth control test on the planet could tell me if Denise would turn up pregnant. Even if we had a handful of the little strips, none of them would register yet. Daniel might have that answer. I hated the thought of asking him, yet saw no other options. The boy had a window into the future. It might be cloudy and vague at times, but it beat staring at a wall of uncertainty.
My father had once told me that life was one long road full of twists and turns, each marked by decisions we made. I had believed my options limited to not if I would die, but when. Growing up, I’d been a target for every respiratory infection known to man. Working in my shop with details of the disease playing out on the radio, every passing day brought me face to face with my own mortality. When it began its inexorable march across the world, I had little hope that I would be able to escape it or survive it. The decision to come to Portsmouth had been my way of choosing to spend what I believed to be my final days not following in my father’s footsteps, but mentally and emotionally walking them with him.
I’d seen the symptoms in the others. All day long, my mind had looked for alternatives. Maybe I was just tired. Maybe I had the flu, maybe, maybe, maybe. Hearing Gorgol utter what amounted to a death sentence when he confirmed the disease in me, brought that chapter of life to a close. Death is a uniquely personal journey. No one can walk the path with you, nor can you take anyone along for company. The tender hands and sad faces might provide some comfort, but the doorway ahead exists solely for you. Everyone and everything you have ever loved stays behind when you step through.
The threat posed by The Fever offered no bright spots. If one aspect seemed a little less dim, it boiled down to how it sapped at strength. I’d felt exhausted most of the day. If Jessie served as an example for the path ahead of me, then the normal emotions of fear, dread, and the instinctive will to survive would be shoved aside by weariness so consuming that the simple act of breathing would become a chore.
That realization begat another, one tied to often wondering why some people go peacefully. In that moment, I understood. Sometimes it can be harder to live than to die. I hadn’t reached that point yet, but in watching the girl slide off into eternity, knew a final signpost stood somewhere ahead on my personal journey. Once past it, I’d not have the strength or the will to turn back. Death would be a relief at that point. If anything sucked, I’d probably pass that last marker in my sleep.
Elsie’s voice brought me out of the desolate and dismal path my mind had taken. When I glanced over, she looked concerned.
“Are you okay?”
I stared at her, confused. “Yeah, I guess, why?”
“I’ve asked you the same question three times, Hill William. Where has your mind been?”
“Bad places,” I said with a sigh. The act of expelling my breath seemed to drain energy out with it. Pushing the sofa down the hall had brought back the queasy feeling. The mental acrobatics had sapped what little energy I had and left me sitting dead in the middle of a fence with no idea which side had any hope or reality attached to it.
“I was saying that you needed to give me an idea how you’re planning to use Daniel.”
“The only way I know how,” I replied, “up close and personal.”
Alarm shot across her features.
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “I’ll face the thing, whatever it is. I won’t leave that task to Daniel. I just need his thoughts to guide me.”
I slugged down another shot of whiskey and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
“There’s a question I need to ask him first. Depending on the answer, I might not have any choices left. Can you bring him out here?”
She studied me for a long moment, then rose and walked inside. A few minutes later the door opened again. Daniel walked out with Elsie close behind.
I didn’t waste any time. “Daniel, is Denise going to have a baby?”
I glanced up at Elsie and saw realization dawn on her face.
“Oh my God! I hadn’t even thought of that.”
I nodded and looked back at the boy.
He considered the question for a moment with a frown that grew deeper the longer he pondered over it.
Finally he looked up.
“Yes, Mr. William.”
Those three little words hit me like a punch to my ribcage, taking breath and whatever stubborn, independent streak I had away. I leaned back against the station wall. The sense of hopelessness that slid over me left me feeling bone-tired and burned out.
“Then I guess I don’t have much of a decision to make.”
Too often, Daniel carried a sense of too many years and too much knowledge stuffed inside a child barely old enoug
h to know his letters and numbers. Listening to him talk of death, ghosts, and shades made it easy to forget he was only six years old. Standing on the porch, shooting nervous glances toward a yard bathed in darkness, he looked and seemed his age for the first time since I’d met him. Reaching over, I tousled his unruly hair.
“I guess we get to be shades, don’t we?”
The brief interlude between adult and child vanished at that point. He looked up and smiled in the same odd, knowing manner he’d used when he told me I’d have to kill Zachary again.
“Don’t worry, Mr. William. You won’t remember how bad it hurts.”
Chapter XXVII - The Fever
The fever came in the middle of the night. I woke shivering, naked beneath a pair of sleeping bags, barking out the same wheezing rumble I’d heard from Jessie.
By morning, the cough had erupted into convulsive spasms from which I could find no relief. Elsie delivered a tonic tasting of honey, lemon, and whiskey that knocked the edge off the irritating feel, but didn’t remove it entirely. The day before Jessie died had been the last day she had been up and moving. She had spent it huddled beneath blankets, pale, shivering, and wracked by outbursts of coughing that grew more forceful and violent as the day passed. Describing her final day as up and moving was at best, spinning her condition in euphemistic terms. Every time I saw her, she looked like a zombie or, as my mother would have put it, like death warmed over. She moved slowly when she moved and sat unresponsive the rest of the time.
I knew why. The constant feeling of something squirming as if trying to worm its way into my throat combined with the inability to find enough warmth no matter how many blankets I piled around me, took my mind to a different battle. This one had monsters too. I could literally feel them eating away at me, bit by bit. I’d been sick plenty of times in life, dealt with fevers and battled dozens of respiratory diseases. Nothing compared to The Fever. The sensation at my core felt as if I were rotting from the inside out. I could imagine the flesh putrefying, growing black and withering down deep, in a place where nothing could touch it and nothing could save it. The dull ache pulsing and throbbing inside didn’t just hurt. It felt like I was being consumed.
The Island - The Final Chapters Page 7