by J. L. Murray
“Weren't there just two Revenants left?” said Viv. “The only real Revenants. After you turned the others into weaklings.”
The slap came fast and hard and Viv felt her teeth vibrate. She could taste her own blood in her mouth. She looked at him, panting and breathing hard. She smiled and he turned and started walking again.
“This is the way the world ends,” Viv said, fighting the urge to laugh. “Not with a bang but a whimper.”
“What?” said Conrad, turning.
“It’s a poem,” said Viv.
Conrad shook his head, as if she’d just said something insufferably stupid. “It’s not necessary for you to understand our ways. Just do as I say and maybe you’ll live.”
Viv followed, though she realized there was someone in her head now. Someone she knew. And it wasn’t Conrad.
Hello, Doctor White.
Viv smiled behind Conrad’s back.
Hello, Sia, she said silently. I’ve been waiting for you a very long time.
Forty
Mike opened the double doors just as Sia addressed Dez.
“I was sure I killed you,” Sia said. She watched Dez back away from her and she laughed. The reporter quickly moved in front of the young man, defensive. One of his hands was bandaged and Sia reached for it.
“Mike Novak,” she said. “They cut you because of me.”
Mike pulled his hand away before she could touch it.
“It’s nothing,” he said, but Sia saw the lie. She looked at Joshua.
“He wants to die,” she said. “Because of what they did to him.”
“There’s no time, Sia,” said Joshua. “We have work elsewhere.”
“I’m sorry,” said Sia, looking into Mike’s eyes. “You tried so hard to save me. But I keep telling everyone, I never needed to be saved.”
“You say that,” said Joshua, “and yet when I found you, you were not in control.”
“I’m never in control,” said Sia. She lifted Mike’s hand gently by the wrist and he let her. “This is a brave thing you did, Mike Novak. I won’t kill you. You’re going to be the lucky one.”
“The lucky one?” he said. He looked at Joshua then back at Sia. “What the hell does that mean?”
Sia smiled and kissed his injured hand.
“Everyone you meet falls just a little bit in love with you, don’t they?” said Mike.
Sia turned to Evelyn Hauser.
“I wonder,” Sia said, “if I could ever give you a Hell better than the one you’ve constructed all on your own.”
“Please,” whispered Evelyn. “I relive what I’ve done every day. Sia, please. I don’t sleep.”
“You would tell me to take the pills,” said Sia. She touched Evelyn’s cheek with her finger and the old woman closed her eyes.
“Can you see them?” said Evelyn, opening her eyes as the tears fell down her cheeks. “Will you help the children?”
Sia pulled her hand back, her smile gone. She felt her lip tremble and she put her finger to her mouth, just as she had that first night, under the tree. How had she strayed so far from her path? She looked at Joshua, who stood watching, still as stone.
“Are you going to kill her?” he said.
Sia watched the three human faces, looking at her, concerned. She took a step back. The eyes of the drug dealer, terrified and confused, floated into her mind. She saw herself as though from another’s eyes. She had spent months befriending him, buying his Slack, making him think he had her. Until it was time. Until the night she’d come to the door with a knife. Poor Trey had never had a chance. She saw her husband, Collin, falling to the ground on that cold night, his fingermarks still on her neck. Her mother’s blood was still in her mouth. But it had all had a purpose. She had to be strong. She had seen Ana in Evelyn’s mind. Ana, among an ocean of other children.
She felt her then. Genevieve was her name now. She was broken, hurt, but she had a purpose too, just as Sia had. The forgotten purpose, drowned in the need to kill, to hurt them just as they had been hurt. To make them pay.
But first the children. Sia looked at Evelyn, who nodded. She knew Sia had seen them.
“My violin,” Sia said.
Evelyn nodded and walked across the hall and unlocked the nursing station with the key on her wrist. Sia watched her retrieve the case from under the counter and hand it to her reverently, as though it contained a sacred relic. Sia exhaled as she set it on the counter and the latches sprang open. She opened the case and inhaled the smell of varnish and rosin. She lifted the violin, closing her eyes as she rested it under her chin.
“I know what you want,” said Sia.
“You do?” said Evelyn. Sia didn’t need to open her eyes to know that she was crying.
“You want a funeral march,” said Sia. “You’ve been dreaming awake and it’s always the same song. The one I played for you.”
“Yes,” said Evelyn breathlessly.
“I will play you something beautiful,” said Sia. “It’s your redemption.”
“And then?” said Evelyn.
“And then I will give you what you want most of all,” said Sia.
“Please,” said Evelyn. “Don’t toy with me. I’m not strong like you. I can’t go on like this.”
“I’ve never lied to you, Evelyn,” said Sia. “Can you say the same?”
“I-I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t recall.”
“Perhaps I’ll see you in another life, Evelyn,” said Sia. “But this is the last you’ll see of me in this one.”
“I love you, Sia,” said Evelyn.
Sia played for her, the sound resonating over the woman’s sobs of relief. Sia could feel the music washing over Evelyn, and she watched her fall to her knees, her face upturned, as if in prayer. Sia gave her everything she wanted, and when it was time, Evelyn smiled.
Her blood was bitter.
Sia felt Joshua watching. She knew there was a fervor even in his eyes. She felt the two human men repulsed by her, held in place by Joshua’s will. And, further away, she felt her savior. Genevieve. Viv. The good doctor who risked everything and succeeded, but at great cost to herself. Sia could feel her. They were linked, the two of them. Sia could see death all around her, but not her own. and not the doctor.
Hello, Doctor White, she said, reaching into the woman’s mind. It was a gloriously broken place. Sia felt her pain and her strength and her fear and felt she could live in the woman’s head. It was a fabulous chaos. Sia sighed as the woman spoke to her.
Sia…
Sia walked out of the nursing station holding her violin in one hand, her bow in the other. She looked at Joshua.
“I know where Conrad is,” she said.
“You just killed her,” Dez said. His heart was beating fast and hard. You’re a damn murderer,” he said. Mike put a hand on his arm, but Dez shook him off. “You tried to kill me, you killed the nurse, who else are you going to kill?”
“Do you know what they did to the Bleeders?” asked Sia.
The two men froze as they watched her. She let them see her then, just for a moment. She let them see her Revenance.
“They took them all,” said Sia, her voice low. “They turned them into husks. They took so much from them that their bodies can’t survive without the medicine keeping them alive. But they’re not alive, not really. They took these people, people who may have been good or bad, and turned them into something ugly. Conrad took us, and fed us this ugly thing and made us weak. And now that he knows this ugly thing has failed, he’s going to kill all the ugly things he created and turn children into monsters. He’s going to take everything from them and make them his own. I didn’t know what I would become, but I made each and every choice on the journey that led me here. These children won't get to choose. Do you understand?”
“And Evelyn?” said Dez. “What about her?”
“Evelyn got to choose,” said Sia, meeting his eyes. He flinched. “Her journey led her to die at the very moment she wanted
to go. And she was grateful.”
“I wanted to save you,” said Dez. Sia realized he wasn’t angry, he was grieving. For himself, for a life badly led. Sia reached into his mind to soothe him.
“No,” he said, but he couldn't stop her from reaching inside and taking his pain away.
“What are you doing?” said Mike, as Dez went still.
“Sia,” said Joshua. “They know I’m here.”
“So let’s go introduce ourselves,” said Sia. “Are you boys ready to take back your world?”
Mike frowned at her.
“I only have one hand,” he said. “I’m not in good shape.”
“And now?” said Sia. “Do you feel pain now?”
Mike flexed the wrist of his bandaged hand and looked at her in amazement.
“How did you do that?”
“I can’t give you your fingers back,” said Sia, “but I can make you forget your pain.”
“And the children?” Mike asked.
“Yes,” said Sia. “Kill Conrad and the children might be saved.”
“Give them stakes,” said Sia. “Give them all you have.”
“And what will we use?” said Joshua.
“Did you not plant an orchard of death outside?” she smiled. Joshua tossed a bundle of stakes onto the floor and the two men knelt to begin gathering them up.
“You are changed,” said Joshua, taking Sia’s arm in his hand. “What has happened?”
“Just flashes of a dream,” said Sia.
“You’ve seen something?”
“I see everything,” she said. “You gave that to me.”
“Are we going to survive?”
“You don’t care about surviving,” said Sia. “You care about your kind surviving. You care about killing Conrad. And you care about me.”
“None of that is false,” said Joshua.
“Conrad will die on this night,” said Sia. “And all that happens will be to save the Revenants. We will outlive this night, Joshua. Do you want me still?”
“I will always want you,” he said, his eyes burning into her own.
“You could take me now,” she said. “Forget all this, forget about Conrad. We could leave and you could have me forever.”
He touched her naked breast, heat in his eyes.
“But you will not,” Sia said for him.
“No,” he said. He didn’t take his hand away and Sia reached up and licked his lips.
“And neither will I,” she said. “More lives are at stake than ours tonight.”
He pressed up against her, quivering in his desire. He seemed to gather up every bit of considerable self-control he had to pull himself away. His heart was beating so fast that Sia could see the glow in the pulse at the base of his throat.
They followed the human men down the hall and Sia stopped them at the door that led outside. The four of them looked out onto the snow drifts sparkling under the now-cloudless sky. Sia could feel Revs coming from either side of the hospital, could feel them crouching in the forest, waiting. She smiled and stepped into the snow, coloring it red with blood. She raised the violin as she reached the middle of the courtyard. She looked into the edge of the trees and saw the blur of Joshua cutting stakes. The Revs didn’t stir. They were watching her. Too slow to see him, too stupid to know what was about to happen.
Sia, came Viv’s voice in her head. Sia, there’s something wrong.
I’ll come to you, Sia replied silently. But first, I must reap what I’ve sown.
She began to play. For the first time since the world went dark, the air was full of music. The woods began to stir.
Forty-One
Mike could not honestly say what happened in the halls of the hospital. He knew that Joshua Flynn had shown up with a naked Sia, and that Sia had killed the old nurse. And the next thing he knew, he was standing in a snowy courtyard with a goddamn stake in his good hand, surrounded by a music that seemed to reach into his soul. He turned to see Sia, crusted in blood like she’d showered in it, and her hair was as wild as her eyes as she spun barefoot in the snow as she played. Her fingers moved so quickly that they were a blur, and Mike swore he saw a tendril of smoke rise from the strings of the violin.
The woods were moving, and Dez moved closer to him.
“Mikey, what are we doing?” said Dez, his face pale and sickly.
“You should go, Dez,” said Mike. “I don’t know what she did to your head back there, but you don’t belong here.”
“Why? Because I’m a coward?” he said angrily, gripping a stake in each hand as he watched the woods. Mike saw movement out of the corner of his eye and he looked toward the hospital. They were being watched. There were Revs crowding in every window, watching them. Some were laughing, others watching Sia, just as transfixed as Mike when he’d first seen her. She was like a nightmare that you didn’t want to end. He didn’t understand her hold over everyone she met, but all of them seemed intent on killing themselves to protect her.
“I don’t think you’re a coward, son,” said Mike. “I just want you to survive.”
“My life isn’t any more important than yours,” said Dez. “And I’ll risk it however the bloody hell I want to.”
“I don’t think we get out of this alive, Dez,” said Mike.
“Those kids, Mikey,” said Dez. “I’ve never done anything good in my life. Maybe the reason I was stuck in the middle of all this is to save those kids. Maybe this is my shot.”
“You’re a good man, Dez.”
“Nah,” he said, and Mike could see in his eyes that he’d made up his mind. “I’ll go down swinging, mate. I’ll go down fighting. And then you can say I was a good man who died. I’m not afraid anymore. I want to do what’s right. I’m done being a coward.”
Mike nodded.
“Okay, Dez.”
And as Dez turned to face the Rev walking toward him, Mike could see a strength in the young man that wasn’t there before. Dez walked out in front of a Rev who pointed a pistol at him. Without even blinking, Dez had the stake in the Rev’s chest, backing away as the wood took hold and the vines spread out around the Rev’s chest, turning from green to brown, roots plunging down as branches reached for a sky as clear as Mike could ever remember. Black petals rained down on Dez’s head as he looked up at the tree that had a moment ago been a Rev.
“Why didn’t he shoot me?” said Dez.
Mike looked at Sia, who played on, her eyes closed, the flurry of sounds vibrating like passion in Mike’s chest. Sia opened her eyes and smiled at him. He tore his eyes from her and looked back to the forest. The Revs were, one by one, stumbling out of the wood, guns in hand but not shooting.
“It’s the music,” Mike said. “They’re drawn to it like flies.”
“It’s the Revenant in them,” said Joshua Flynn, suddenly at Mike’s side. “They will forever be drawn to beauty. Conrad turned it into their weakness. And they will defend Conrad to the death.” He dropped a pile of sharpened sticks between Mike and Dez. Mike looked past Joshua at the trees where the Revs were hiding.
“Do they even know?” he said. “That they’re standing in a graveyard?”
“They’ll get the idea eventually,” said Joshua.
The faces from the windows were starting to disappear and Revs were filing out to watch Sia play. Mike stood, transfixed, as Joshua Flynn moved, so fast he barely saw him, leaving trees where monsters once stood. Dez yelled out as he drove stake after stake into the bodies of the helpless creatures. Mike watched one of the Revs come out of the hospital, tall and pale. He dropped the gun he carried in the snow and made his way toward Sia, moving like a sleepwalker. Tears fell from his face as he watched her dance, as he listened to the music. He fell to his spindly knees and all Mike could do was stare at him. His teeth were sharp and yellow, his eyes were red slits, and he was the most piteous creature Mike had ever seen. The Rev put his hand out, as though to touch the music, and Dez pushed Mike aside and drove a stake through the Rev’s heart.
“Stop this,” Mike said.
Sia played on, and Mike was now standing in a forest growing thicker by the second.
“Stop this,” he said again.
He watched a female Rev, swaying awkwardly to the music. Joshua took her in a blur of movement and was gone again.
“They just want to listen to the music,” Mike said, but his voice had gone quiet and hoarse. He realized he was crying, too. He held the stake that Joshua had given him in his good hand and he looked at it now.
He heard her voice in his head, and he knew it was Sia.
If I stop playing, they will kill you.
“I know,” Mike said aloud. “I know that. But goddammit. I can’t just kill them standing there like that.”
And what about Kyra? What about your wife?
“What about her?”
It wasn’t your fault, Michael. It was them. It was us. You did the kindest thing you knew to do. You let her go. If you let these creatures live, they’ll do to those children what they did to Kyra. Only they won’t use their teeth. They’ll use scalpels and syringes and antiseptic.
“Don’t ask me to do this,” Mike whispered. “I’m not a killer.”
Mike couldn’t see the sky any longer. When he looked up, cool petals fell on his face. There was no movement around him any more, no fluid movements or dancing or people turning into trees. The silence seemed to hit Mike like a knife. Sia stopped playing. Mike walked through the trees, afraid of what he would find, afraid of what he wouldn’t.
He came around a group of twisted trunks, avoiding the face he could clearly see in the wood. Dez stood there, smiling at him.
“Mikey, did you see me?”
He nodded. “I saw you, Dez.”
Dez smiled, looking like his old cocky self again for a moment. Then there was movement behind him. Mike barely registered the pale face, the black coat, the eyes like slits when the shot rang out. And Dez stared at Mike, his eyes wide.
“Dez,” Mike said. He felt frozen. All he could do was watch as Dez put a hand to his chest and looked at the blood flowing over his fingers.