“Wait!” Occubo said. “He’s making sense. We don’t want to compete for a decreasing food supply!”
“That competition will always be won by us,” Misericordia replied. “That’s another good reason to keep our numbers low. There aren’t many of us, so there will always be plenty to eat!”
Occubo frowned at the Alpha leader. “And what if the Sutr-Z infected eat all the surviving humans?”
“Then we’ll eat zombies!”
“Ew.”
Misericordia backhanded her. Occubo spun backward, thrown into a lab desk with a crash. She sunk to the floor and held her face. A beaker had shattered and a long, jagged shard stood out from her eye socket.
“Oh,” Occubo said. “I really do feel that.”
Misericordia reached down and locked the wheels on Dr. Merritt’s chair. Then the vampire moved to kneel in front of Occubo. He cupped her ruined face gently in both hands.
“I’m sorry, darling.”
“It-it’s okay. I shouldn’t have…I’ll look sexy with an eye patch.”
“Not sexy enough, Sweetie. You’ve got big a mouth.” Misericordia gripped the sides of her head and wrenched sideways. Her neck made a satisfying crack and Occubo slipped to the floor.
Misericordia dragged the Alpha’s corpse closer to Merritt. “Did you hear that crack? Whoo! Should have been a chiropractor!”
Merritt looked away, but he could hear Misericordia’s jaws working as he ate.
“The joy you will never know, Merritt, is that to a vampire, the best tasting meal isn’t a human. You’ll do, but you’re just a snack to me. I’ve discovered that when I feed on one of my own kind, the venom makes me so much higher. I’m the strongest of the Alphas, you know. Some are bigger, but none is stronger or faster. They don’t know. Occubo’s little sacrifice? Keeps me king. After this fine meal, I’ll hardly enjoy eating you at all.”
“Good.”
Misericordia smiled. “But I could make you last. I had lots of time to think when you and your people tied me down. I thought of meat, mostly, but there was time enough to plan, too. I knew somebody would work on a cure and here you are, leading me to her.”
“What?”
“Where is Dr. Harper?”
Merritt barely managed to raise his head. “The last I saw her, she said she was going to take a nap.”
Misericordia stood and, for the first time, looked worried. He wiped the red gore from his chin and reached for a walkie-talkie. “Vigilax! Any sign of Harper?”
The device crackled static for a second and clicked. “Her bed is still warm, but I can’t find her. I think she got away, Boss. Sorry.”
“Someone must have warned her,” Misericordia said, “in her sleep.”
In the end, the Alpha leader hid Occubo’s remains in a closet and wheeled Dr. Merritt outside the lab for a picnic by the building’s reflecting pool.
“You know doctor, if I just gave you one little bite, you’d be feeling fit and young again in no time.”
“Yeah. Bite me, Wiggins!”
“What’s this? Dignity? Or have you abandoned all hope?”
“If you’re going to kill me, do it.”
Misericordia put on a friendly smile. “Contrary to the movies, vampire venom cures more than it kills…if I stop eating you before rupturing all your organs, of course, or destroy your brain...or snap your neck and shut down your breathing. Think of that, Merritt! You could get a brand new spine. A stiffer one this time. You’d heal faster than any medicine you ever peddled.”
“Then stop this and cure me…please?” Merritt pleaded.
“I do have some physiology questions you might be able to assist me with. If the information is strong, I could make you strong again, too. I do make sure everyone gets what they deserve.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You shouldn’t, but a few minutes ago you were ready to sacrifice the human race and sell them into lives of slavery to be butchered.”
“To save them.”
“So, helping me is your only hope. You’ll take that chance.”
The doctor did try to answer Misericordia’s questions and he did help. Then Merritt watched himself in the water’s mirror as Misericordia burned him to death in his wheelchair. The fat of his thighs burned bright, melting and melding with the wheelchair’s plastic seat.
Even through his drug-filled haze, Merritt found the energy to scream his grief and sorrow.
“I couldn’t find any garlic, but you’ll do! I’ll eat you slow, but I won’t stop!” Misericordia screamed back. “I so enjoy a thick slab of barbecued pork!”
The hidden answer waited there all along
The friendly young man who gave the European refugees a ride in the back of his old pickup laughed pleasantly and waved as he roared off in a cloud of oily smoke. Princess Sheila NaGeira was not a person. It was Carbonear’s Princess Sheila NaGeira Theater.
Aasa could not suppress a grin as she led the way to the front door. She looked taller and not a little smug.
Sinjin-Smythe carried the little girl’s bag for her. “If we find a wizard in there,” he told Desi, “I’m going to have to reassess my life in its entirety.”
“With all that’s happened, don’t you think you should have done so already?”
The virologist shrugged. “Been busy.”
The front door was unlocked and Aasa paused to look up at Sinjin-Smythe. “Somebody’s expecting us.”
“I get it, Aasa. You’re right. I’m wrong. Okay? No need to hammer me into the ground.”
“Well…you are a little in need,” Dayo said.
As they traversed the lobby, they heard someone talking behind closed doors. The cadence of the words suggested an incantation.
The theater was dark and empty except for a wide circle of beeswax candles and a tall old man who paced the stage in a bathrobe. He wore a long beard to his trim belly. Three elastics, evenly spaced, made his beard look like a tightly controlled horsetail. Every second step was accompanied by the heavy thud of his thick walking stick, which was almost as long as he was tall.
The man spoke in a clear, resonant voice, as if performing for a crowded house. It was not exactly a magic spell the man repeated again and again. It was a powerful line, repeated over and over, from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
“To be or not to be,” the man nearly shouted, “that is the question!”
“What’s the answer?” Dayo asked, cutting through his reverie.
The man froze and turned slowly. “Ah,” he said, and, with a theatrical sweep of his arm, gestured for the refugees to be seated in the front row. He stepped carefully into the centre of the circle of candlelight. Bathed white in their glow, he waited for his audience to come to the front and settle in.
They studied him as they drew closer. In the dim light, he might be an athletic fifty-five, or a well-preserved man in his late sixties.
“I’ve been pondering the question,” he said. “It’s a tough one. It’s so tough, a lot of people think it shouldn’t even be asked. However, you people are my answer. The messenger said you’d come and here you are. It’s time we got this war machine rolling without delay. Forces will gather. Best we beat them to their mischief.”
“He told me you’d be here,” Aasa said.
“And thank you for coming, Aasa! If not for you and your little sister, Aastha, I would have answered the big question wrong and I wouldn’t be here. Without you girls, the answer would be ‘Not!’”
“You know our names?” Dayo asked.
“Of course. The messenger is hooked up better than the NSA ever was. You are Dayo Dabiri.”
Sinjin-Smythe’s head came up. “Even I didn’t remember your last name,” he admitted.
Dayo pinned him with sharp, glittering eyes. “You never knew it and never asked…Dr. Craig Sinjin-Smythe. Sh. The wizard you were so sure couldn’t exist is talking.”
The man laughed. “Wizard. Heh. Close, I suppose. But le
t’s talk a little more about you, just so the Doubting Thomas doctor there will be sure I’m worth knowing. The girls are our reason for being —” (little Aastha clapped at that) “and the rest of you are warriors in the best war there ever was.”
“There are no good wars,” Desi said.
“True, but there are just causes. This is it, Desmond Walsh.”
“Call me Desi.”
“You’re a warrior, Desi.”
“Yeah? How does that work out?”
“The messenger doesn’t know the future.”
“That’s a fret.”
“And finally, Dr. Craig Sinjin-Smythe!”
“Yes. I know. And you’re the wise mage that leads us on the final leg of our epic journey?”
“I’m not that wise. I’m a draftee, just like you.”
“You couldn’t say no?”
“I could, but I’d worry about my life after this one. I don’t want to come back as a dung beetle. I’m really hoping for heaven.”
“Is that what the boy who can’t tell the future promised you?” Sinjin-Smythe asked. “The key to heaven?”
“Only God has that, doctor. But if I could ask for that key, I’ll have a better case if I have a clean slate. Everybody wants a clean slate when they die. Don’t say you don’t.”
Sinjin-Smythe scoffed. “If you’re doing the right thing for a reward, you’re just another mercenary. Mercenaries are who we’re fighting.”
“So you’re still fighting the wrong war, doc?”
“I’m still hoping to save my unborn child from the monster who carries her and work on a cure for the Sutr virus, if that’s what you mean.”
“Then the answer is yes, you’re still fighting the wrong war.”
“Shite.”
“Quite.”
“Let’s just assume I’m adjusting to the slights and the weirdness,” Sinjin-Smythe said. “Who are you?”
“I’m sorry, doctor. When you’re operating with more information, it’s easy to forget some aren’t up to speed on everything.”
“Great.”
“To your question, I’m the guy who’s going to get you into the next hot mess, as the kids say. I’m Brother Bob Faulkner from Jersey. My friends call me Bro Bob. At least, they did when I had friends who were still on the right side of the grass.”
“How’d you end up here, Bro Bob?” Dayo asked.
“I’ll skip over the boring stuff — “
“And the stuff you’re risking your life to atone for,” Sinjin-Smythe said.
When Bro Bob reddened, the doctor knew he’d scored a hit.
The monk cleared his throat. “Long story short: a few months ago I was holed up at a Zen retreat. Was Jesuit. Lost faith. Went Zen. Plague hit. Everybody around me died, even the health nuts and vegans who were heavily into yoga and Pilates. Lost more faith. I was so sick I thought I’d die.”
His delivery came too quickly, as if he’d rehearsed this script a long time. He’d sounded mad reciting “to be or not to be” over and over. Now he sounded like he was selling a car without a working engine.
“A boy from Kansas City, Missouri showed up in my dreams. Told me to come here and get you. My faith wandered back. In Hoboken, I found a pilot named George Enfry. We flew here and we’ve been waiting for three days. George is, at this moment, guarding his plane, if he hasn’t lost his nerve and decided not to wait. George has agreed to take us as far as Nova Scotia. After that, we’ll have to find alternative transportation.”
“Why can’t he take us all the way to Maine?” Aasa asked. “That’s where we’re supposed to go.”
Brother Bob nodded. “The boy told him to pick up somebody else who’s just as important as we are.”
Sinjin-Smythe looked annoyed. “Who’s that?”
“Another doctor. He needs to fetch her from Manitoba.”
Sinjinn-Smythe’s eyes went wide. “Wait. Who are you talking about? Which doctor?”
“Heh. Not a witch doctor, Craig. That would be your ex-fiancee.”
“Hilarious.”
“Sorry, doc. It’s Dr. Ellen Harper.”
“Ellen! I know her! She’s still alive? She was at the Manitoba station. We met once in New York. It was at the same conference where I met Ava.”
“That’s Shiva to the rest of us, doctor,” Dayo said.
Sinjin-Smythe ignored her. “The last I heard, they hadn’t made any progress with Sutr.”
“She has made great progress since, at least with Sutr-X. George’s mission is to get her to Montreal. That’s where the new anti-viral efforts will be focused.”
Desi perked up. “So, there’s a cure?”
Sinjin-Smythe scoffed. “We grow vaccines in eggs, Desi. We don’t build time machines. A cure’s too much to ask, but a vaccine is a reasonable expectation.”
“Indeed,” Bro Bob said. “Dr. Harper has the makings of a vaccine. It will take time to produce it in great quantities, but she’ll save a lot of people from further waves of the Sutr-X virus. With time, maybe we’ll have an inoculation against Sutr-Z and Sutr-A. The lucky citizens of Montreal will be the first to be free of fear of more waves of Sutr-X.”
“So, it’s cracked. She’ll need help. I should be there,” the doctor said. He stood and hurriedly fished his R2D2 jump drive out of his front pocket. “I have data — ”
“Which George will take to Dr. Harper. Thank you.”
“But…”
Aasa reached up and squeezed Sinjin-Smythe’s free hand. “Wrong war, doctor.”
He was about to rebuke the child but when he looked in her eyes, he froze. Sinjin-Smythe pulled his hand away and sat in his chair.
“What’s our war plan, Bro Bob?” Desi asked.
“The word ‘plan’ is a little grandiose for what I’ve got, sir. I know there will be at least one great battle, but probably two, maybe three. I’m to take you, doctor, and Desi, to the first waypoint. If we survive the first, maybe we won’t need the second, but odds are against. If we don’t at least win something with the first battle, we’ll surely lose the second, and thus the war goes to the Dark Forces of Evil, if that doesn’t sound too Lord of the Rings.”
“Clear as mud,” Desi said, “and I don’t fancy leaving Dayo and the girls.”
“They are who you are fighting for, sir, and speed is of the essence. We must make a major dent in the Alpha forces. This will prove difficult. They’re very resilient, almost immune to pain and I’m told they are now…not unkillable but difficult to kill, some more so than others. A bit of garlic wrapped around the cross and holy water won’t scare these vampires.”
Desi shifted in his seat. “Any other good news?”
Bro Bob shrugged. “I can only tell you what the boy tells me. I have little else.”
Sinjin-Smythe’s frown deepened. “Our plots drift down in dreams from God knows where, filtered through a mystic autistic to arrive in a garbled child’s game of broken telephone. With this sort of irrationality, we’re supposed to sort out hell? What could possibly go wrong?”
Tiny Aastha leaned forward in her seat and looked over at Sinjin-Smythe. “Don’t sulk. Daddy told me it makes your face all pruney, like my toes when I won’t get out of the bathtub.”
Everyone chuckled but Sinjin-Smythe.
“It could be worse,” Bro Bob said.
“How?”
“Well, doctor, you could say ours is a suicide mission —”
Sinjin-Smythe gave an exaggerated sigh. “I do hope you can finish that thought better than how you started it.”
Bro Bob cleared his throat. “The answer to the question to be or not to be? If we lose, you won’t want to be.”
The group was silent except for Aastha idly swinging her heels against the legs of her chair.
“Interesting, isn’t it?” Bro Bob continued. “And Ms. Dabiri, you look like you have a question.”
“What makes you think I’m going to stand idl
y by while the men go off to fight the war? I’ve faced down zombies in London and Reykjavik and I’ve seen every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’m ready to go up the supernatural evolutionary ladder and wage war on the vamps.”
“And I admire you for it. However, your answer is to your left and right.” He pointed to Aasa and Aastha. “They’re the keys to the future. You must protect the Vermer girls.”
Clearly annoyed, Dayo reached across Aasa to squeeze Desi’s hand. “So…” Dayo asked, “Where are we supposed to go?”
“Well, I am excited for you on that score.” At this, he gave a big, used car salesman smile. “You’re finally going to meet Jaimie Spencer in the real world. We’ll drop you off in Poeticule Bay, Maine. You’re to wait for him there. He and his family are still trying to make it to Maine. Complications, as they say, have ensued.”
“Why don’t we just go pick him up?” Sinjin-Smythe asked. “We’ve got a plane now. Let’s let the little general fight on the front lines beside us.”
Bro Bob smiled. “I asked him the same thing. Jaimie Spencer is earth’s last known living celebrity. We go to sleep and he’s on every channel. I wanted to shake the boy’s hand myself. He’s bigger than Bieber and Elvis put together.”
“What did the boy say?” Sinjin-Smythe asked.
Bro Bob glanced at the girls and seemed to lose his self-possession. “He said that not everyone in his party can make it to Poeticule Bay. He’s been informed by the higher forces at work. His exact words were, ‘A couple of people have to die first.’”
A ghost of a chance steered you wrong
Though metal and death and burnt flesh jammed the road, the path by the woods was a horror in its own way. Discarded pens, candy wrappers and water bottles littered the route. Often they saw shoes, but never both shoes — just one. If it was some kind of sign or signal to those who followed the trail, the message remained a mystery.
“I used to see that on the highway all the time,” Jack said. “One shoe. I have no idea how that happens. Nobody ever knew. It seems more…ominous now.”
Mostly, they saw discarded clothing. They stepped around many forgotten suitcases. Some had been opened but many were simply dropped.
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