Blood Day

by J. L. Murray

  Viv's eyes watered and she finally blinked, wiping away tears in the frigid wind. She took a gasping breath, and then another. She willed her feet to move, one in front of the other, until she was standing in front of the guard station.

  A man in his sixties, portly, with gray hair and pudgy, ruddy cheeks looked cheerfully down at her.

  “Can I help you?” he said.

  “I...don't know,” said Viv.

  “You're the new gal, aren't you?” said the man. He smiled and Viv couldn't help but smile back, though nervously.

  “What's your name, sweetheart?” said the guard.

  Viv broadened her smile, willing herself to ignore the sweetheart. The sly little nicknames to remind her that she was just a woman. She was just a black woman, no less. The nicknames were as pointed as a barb, even if the men didn't realize it. She was once outspoken about it. She was once outspoken about a lot of things.

  It was a good thing they couldn't read her thoughts the way some claimed they could. Viv straightened her shoulders.

  “Dr. Genevieve White,” she said.

  “Doctor, eh?” said the guard, raising his eyebrows. “Good for you.”

  Viv ground her teeth. “Thank you.”

  He flipped pages on a clipboard. “Ah, here you are. Identification?”

  Viv passed her ID. He pored over the picture, looked up at her face, eyes narrowed in concentration, then looked back at the card.

  “I assure you that it’s really me,” she said, trying to sound friendly.

  The guard looked up at her, smiling again. “Sorry, miss. It's only that we've had some...trouble lately. Just have to be thorough.” He passed the identity card back to her and she slid it into her wallet. “My name is Sidney Kearns, but everyone calls me Sid.”

  “Nice to meet you, Sid.”

  “And you, Dr. White.”

  “Everyone calls me Viv,” she said.

  Sid handed her a clipboard. “Sign next to your name, then, Viv.” He smiled when he said her name. She signed. “Okay!” he said, taking the clipboard and initialing by her name. He passed a bulky yellow envelope through the window. “This is for you, your badge and a key. The badge must be worn at all times inside the facility. If you lose your official badge, you will be detained and questioned before a new one is issued. Same with your key. It will open most doors in the hospital. Of course you won’t be able to access classified areas, but anywhere you need to go, your key should work. Do you understand?”

  Sid's face had gone from genial to intensely serious. He studied her with bright blue eyes.

  “I understand,” she said. She felt something hollow in the pit of her stomach.

  “You will need your key to enter or leave the building,” Sid said, more cheerful again. “You’ll need your badge, so you may as well put it on right now.”

  Viv took out a heavy rectangular card on a scarlet lanyard, and hung it around her neck. The front showed her name, some codes that no doubt denoted her job title or something similar, and her picture. It was the same picture from her identity card. Everything was governmental these days.

  “You'll also find an employee manual and a map of the facility in the envelope,” Sid went on. “You are assigned to H-block.”

  “H-block?” said Viv, smiling. “Sounds like a prison.”

  Sid frowned. “Each department is separated into blocks. You are assigned to H-block. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” said Viv.

  “You are not to enter any other block unless specifically requested by an administrator on that block. Even though you, yourself, are an administrator, you will not be able to request any interdepartmental consultations until your probation period is over. Do you understand?”

  “Er, no,” said Viv.

  “What?”

  “I don't understand,” said Viv. “You said I'm an administrator. That can't be right.”

  “It’s written right here,” said Sid. “No mistake.”

  “I thought I was just doing...I guess blood testing, like I did at my last job. I was told I’d be a head researcher, not the administrator.”

  “Congratulations on the new job,” he said. “Sounds like you're moving up in the world.” Sid's face slid back into cheerful mode. He grinned, showing a dimple on one pudgy cheek. “Good for you, Viv.”

  At least he didn't call her sweetheart.

  “I don't know about this,” said Viv.

  “Relax. You'll do fine. Now. You have everything you need. If you look at your map, you'll see that the entryway for blocks F through J is just straight through and to your left.” Sid leaned out the window and pointed. “See that door?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go through that door, and follow the hallway to the left until you reach H-block. Your badge should get you in.” He smiled again. “Do not pass GO, do not collect two hundred dollars.” His eyes crinkled at his joke. Viv made her mouth smile.

  “I was told a General Lawrence Davies would be showing me around,” she said.

  “Davies is no longer with us,” said Sid, narrowing his eyes.

  “Did he get fired?” she said, smiling.

  “It’s none of your concern, to be perfectly frank,” said Sid. “All you need to know is that Mr. Davies was a very curious man.”

  “Oh,” said Viv.

  “But we won’t have to worry about you, will we, Viv?” he said, smiling again.

  “Thanks,” said Viv, wanting to scream. “I’ll try to mind my own business.”

  “You're welcome, honey. Good luck.”

  Viv felt the smile fall off her face as she walked away from the guard station.

  “What the hell am I doing here?” she muttered to herself. But she knew what she was doing. She was surviving.

  The door clicked open when she turned her key, but Viv decided she must have missed a turn in the cold, blank hallway where the lights were burned out. Now she was staring at a door with no letter on it at all and trying to remember if she’d stayed to the left. She looked behind her. After going up and down several hallways, she had seen every letter but H on the doors. The map was useless, just a sheet of paper with a series of lines and letters, and did not include any of the short staircases or the weird, meandering hallways. She stared at the metal door in front of her and took a deep breath. Since her key slid easily in the door, it must really be the right door. Viv thought about Sid the Guard, interjecting a series of warnings and threats. Surely they couldn't be upset if she got lost on her first day. They should have provided a guide to show her the way. She was, after all, an administrator now.

  Viv frowned. That news wasn't happy for her. She had always loathed the humans in charge, ever since the Annex. And now she was an administrator. Would they expect her to report her own kind to the bastards in charge? More importantly, would she?

  She looked up at the glaring light, a bare bulb surrounded by thin metal bars. The dull white walls and painted gray floor felt suddenly very tight. Viv gasped as she looked at the blank door in front of her. She couldn't breathe. She wrapped her hands around her ribs, trying to force herself to suck in air. Her head was swimming and her vision blurred with angry tears. She felt a pressure on her chest, like the dull walls were closing in, like the blank steel door was right on top of her, crushing her chest, her ribs, her lungs.

  With a sound like a wounded animal, Viv crashed through the door and fell to her knees in a dimly-lit hallway, gasping for air. Her nostrils burned with the smell of iodine and cleaning fluid. Black spots swam in her vision, but after a few gasping breaths, they disappeared, her vision clear and crisp, the dizziness abating. She felt a hot flush rise in her cheeks. She rested against the wall until her heart slowed and the feeling returned to her fingers and toes.

  Brushing herself off and looking around to see if anyone had witnessed her moment of weakness, Viv stood shakily. She squared her shoulders and straightened her back, pulling her key out of the lock and pocketing it. She closed her eyes and willed
her face to rest back into its calm facade. It wasn't until she heard the click of shoes that she realized she was walking.

  She strode through the hallway, glancing at fluorescent lights and blank green walls. After a few steps, the hallway opened up into a sort of lobby with no chairs. It looked very much like a hospital. Viv could hear the sounds of machines beeping and chirping somewhere close by. Doors lined the walls, most of them closed. A plexiglass window filled the corner, with what looked like a nursing station behind it. Viv frowned and headed toward it. It appeared to be empty. A woman's pink cardigan was hanging on the back of an office chair, charts and paperwork carefully assembled across the desk, a pen on top of a fluid intake chart. A door had been left open on the other side of the plexiglass, as though the nurse had to run out in a hurry. Viv could hear a woman's voice down one of the two hallways that led away from the lobby.

  Viv headed toward the voice, heels echoing dully against the pale green walls. The floor here was painted white and shone with wax. Viv passed empty gurneys abandoned in the hall, tucked neatly against the hall in between doors. Some had restraints made of leather or canvas attached to them. One still had a pair of handcuffs latched to a bar on the side of the gurney. The cuffs gleamed under the fluorescents.

  Viv stopped when she heard a small noise. She turned to find that one of the doors was open. Over the sound of her own heart thumping hard in her chest, it took a moment for her to register the sound of crying.

  Without thinking, Viv stepped into the room. It contained only a single bed. There was no other furniture in the room. No pictures or windows or dressers. Upon the bed was a woman, who sat up with a soft noise like the sound a dove makes when she saw Viv.

  “You're not supposed to be here,” said the woman, though she didn't look unhappy to see Viv. She wiped at her cheeks with the thin blanket that covered her.

  “I heard a noise,” said Viv. “Are you all right?” Viv stared at the woman in the bed. She looked so familiar.

  The woman gave a weak, pained smile that faded instantly. She was very thin, recently malnourished, Viv surmised. Yet her skin had a healthy sheen, as though she had recently started eating well. Viv eyed the IV that led to the woman's arm, which was dotted with fingerprint-sized bruises. The woman's gown slid off her thin shoulder, and Viv saw the same bruises there, too. Scars dotted her neck and forehead, nearly faded.

  “You were an addict,” said Viv.

  “Are you a doctor?” the woman said.

  “Yes, ” said Viv, approaching the bed. “I used to be. But that's not how I knew. My husband was hooked on Slack. He had scars just like you. From the boils.”

  The woman looked away. “I'm getting better,” she said softly.

  “I can see that,” said Viv. “You look good. Healthy. Do I know you from somewhere?”

  The woman looked back at her. She was timid, but with a cold anger behind her eyes. Viv recognized it; it was the same anger she revealed when she let her guard down.

  “How would I possibly know you?” the woman said.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps you were a patient of mine, from before?”

  “No,” said the woman, her eyes watching Viv’s face, studying her. Viv had to look down at her hands.

  “My name's Viv,” she said. “I'm afraid I'm really lost. I'm supposed to be starting a new job today.”

  “I’m Sia,” she said. There was a quiet authority to her voice, as though she had been among the best in her profession, or part of the social elite. Her black hair was tied into a messy knot on top of her head, making her fine bone structure more striking. Even under the fluorescent lights, even with the scars and the starving frame, Sia glowed. “What's your job?”

  Viv smiled a small smile. Not a fake one this time. “I don't really know. I think I'm doing something with blood.”

  “Well, they must trust you,” said Sia, sounding bitter. “Blood is very important here.”

  “Sia, are you all right?” Viv said. “Is this a hospital?”

  “How should I know?” said Sia flatly. She pulled the blanket away with her free hand and Viv saw that she had a leather restraint, fastened with a small padlock on her wrist. The lock jingled merrily against the sidebar on the bed when Sia moved her hand. She pulled the blanket up to show Viv that both ankles wore the same restraints.

  “I was well-behaved,” said Sia, her eyes dull. “So I get one hand free now. If I continue to behave, I'll get a foot. Isn't that lovely?”

  “What happens if you don't behave?” said Viv carefully.

  Sia flared her nostrils, fixing Viv with a stare. “Then they shock me again. Dunk me in ice. Drown me with a fire hose. What do you care? You're one of them.”

  “I’m not…” Viv started, but trailed off. Sia was right. She was one of them now. The humans who were part of the problem. Viv felt something strange when Sia looked at her. A familiarity, an odd pressure behind her eyes.

  “Don't worry,” Sia said, looking away from Viv, setting her free. “I'll be one of you soon enough. They've told me enough times.” She looked back at Viv and smiled brightly, her eyes cold. She had straight teeth that were slightly stained in spots. Probably from her recent bout with Slack.

  “What's going to happen to you?” said Viv.

  “Oh, they have big plans for me,” she said. “Sia Aoki is going to save the Revenants, didn't you know? I'm the Beta.”

  “The Beta what?” said Viv.

  “Hell if I know,” said Sia. “Are you going to save me, Viv?”

  “Save you?”

  “Every time some human wanders in here they tell me they're going to save me. You'll be the third, if you do. For a secret wing, this place gets an awful lot of traffic.”

  “Excuse me,” said a voice behind Viv. She whirled and found herself eye-to-eye with a thin, stringy woman who looked to be around seventy. She had her iron-gray hair drawn back in a bun and a badge around her neck nearly identical to the one Viv wore. She made out the name Hauser.

  “Just what the hell do you think you're doing here?” said the old woman. She glared at Viv. Sia laughed softly.

  “I'm sorry,” said Viv. “I'm new here.” She held up her badge. “I got lost.”

  “I should say you're lost,” said the woman. Her body was tense with anger.

  “I'm supposed to be in H-block, but I got turned around,” said Viv. “I'm the new administrator there.”

  “Administrator?” She eyed Viv, seeming unsure how to proceed. “May I see that badge?” Her voice was tight, but she appeared to be trying to control her expression. Forcing it from taut anger to impassive. Viv knew what she was doing because it was the same thing she did a hundred times a day.

  Viv pulled the lanyard off her neck and handed it to Hauser, trying to hide the way her hands shook. She was sure everyone could hear her heart beating like a locomotive. The sound filled Viv's ears.

  “I'm sorry, Ms. White,” said Hauser, giving her a tight smile.

  “It's Doctor White, actually,” said Viv. She stood up straight as she said it. Trying to make it look like she believed the title meant anything. She heard Sia snort behind her.

  “Manners, Sia,” said the woman, still staring at Viv. “I am Nurse Hauser. Evelyn, if you like.”

  “Oh, that's fun,” said Sia. “I'm not allowed to call her Evelyn. Lucky you.”

  Evelyn's nostrils flared slightly, and the tight smile came again.

  “Come with me, Doctor. I apologize. We have to be careful though, and you really shouldn't be wandering around before you learn how we do things around here. Just recently we had a scare. A terrorist tried to kidnap one of my patients.”

  “That’s terrible,” said Viv.

  “It was a close call,” said Evelyn Hauser. “Come, I’ll show you to your block.”

  Viv looked around at Sia as Hauser shuffled her out of the room. She felt she should say something to the woman. She didn't know what to say, or how she could talk with the nurse there, but she fixed S
ia with her eyes anyway, wanting to make her understand that she wasn't one of them, that she would help if she could.

  Sia met her gaze and Viv watched her expression go from guarded bitter humor to something soft and sad and human. The woman Viv heard crying was here. Not the hard, angry shell who had spoken so harshly. As Viv was guided out of the room, she saw something in Sia that made her choke and filled her eyes with tears.

  This was the woman from her dreams. The dreams that woke her, screaming or crying or gasping for breath. This woman Sia was the woman who showed up every time Hunter died in her dreams, disappeared from her arms, or turned into a Revenant before her eyes.

  Sia was the person who always saved her.

  For a split second, she pictured herself pushing the nurse to the ground, slamming her fist into the smug, wrinkled face over and over and over again until blood covered her fists and the floor and the walls. She would hit her until she stopped moving, and then she would take Sia away. She would fuss with the locks with hands that were slippery with the crone's blood. She would take Sia away and then she wouldn't be alone...Then Viv realized why she was here, and why she had the dreams, over and over and over again. Viv used to believe that everything happened for a reason. Even as a woman of science, back when she was respected, she had always had a sureness in the universe around her. Everything was connected and everything happened for a reason. She’d lost that for a long time after the Blackout. But she knew what to do now.

  She would make them trust her. She would make them love her. And then she would destroy every last one of them.

  For Sia. For Hunter. For herself. For the entire godforsaken world.

  Seven

  “She will see you now,” said Evelyn Hauser, looking like she'd been sucking on lemons.

  “Who?” said Sia, swallowing her pills out of a little plastic cup. Hauser handed her a glass full of apple juice that tasted too sweet and too watery all at once.