“I still can’t believe it.”
“Your father?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t say.” He sat down at the Formica break table, resting his head in his hands. “You have family out there, Chesya? You don’t seem very worried.”
“I don’t have anyone, not anymore. Except that fool in the other room. Funny, we only met a couple days ago, but … yeah, he feels like family to me.”
“You like him?”
“Well, that’s a strong word. I can put up with him. You realize when we met he had a gun pointed at me. Not the best first impression. Still, there’s something about him. He’s smart, holds together pretty well. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah,” the boy said with a sheepish grin. “It means you like him.”
“Oh, go to hell.” She laughed despite herself, covering her mouth. “How’d a kid like you get to be so smart?”
“Living on the street. It does that to you. You get smart, or you get dead.”
In a humbler tone, she said, “It must’ve been terrible for you.”
He shrugged. “Hey, didn’t you say you found a TV?”
“Just a couple doors down. I can’t get anything, though. Electric’s still out. I didn’t see a radio.”
“Then let’s look for one,” Christian said. “There’s bound to be one in this place somewhere, and it’ll … it’ll get my mind off my mom.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she said, and they moved down the hallway.
In the laboratory, Andrei watched Rick through the Plexiglas barrier. He pouted, his lower lip jutting out, his eyebrows lowered.
“You let me out now?” he asked.
Rick, who had been searching through the papers that blanketed the floor, turned to the voice. He still appeared a little embarrassed by the Siberian’s nudity, but he pretended it didn’t matter.
“You gonna change into one of those things?” he asked.
“Yes. Tonight. I will be changing to beast again. At least, for some of night.”
“Yeah, that’s what the scientist guy said in the book. Three full moons, then you’re right as rain for another month.”
Rick found several broken beakers, but none of them were labeled. Their interiors were encrusted with something yellow and crumbling. They smelled terrible, too. He wondered if these had contained the mysterious cure.
Turning to the naked man, but averting his eyes a bit, he asked, “You ever see the French scientist make something called Serum A?”
“Yes … yes!” The man moved toward the barrier. “You have found it? It is there?”
“What do you know about it?”
“I have seen it. He, what is word, bragged about it.”
“Well, shit!” Rick said, standing from the mess; pieces of glass and paper stuck to his knees. “What’s it look like? We need to find it and get it to somebody who can distribute it. It could save … I don’t know how many people.”
“I could help you,” the Siberian said. “If you are willing to help with me.”
Rick sighed. “Knew there was a fuckin’ catch in there somewhere.”
“I don’t understand you. Catch?”
“Let me rephrase: What do you want?”
Andrei leaned against the back wall of his cell and crossed his arms over his hairy chest. “I want to get out of here. I want to go back to my home and see my family.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged.”
“I want out now.”
“Well, sport, that’s where we have a problem. You’re going to change again, and we have enough on our hands without setting loose the original monster that started this clusterfuck.”
“It was not me who started this. It was that Frenchman. He brought me here. He changed the disease and let it get loose on the city.”
“In any case, we can let you out tomorrow morning, as long as we find the keys to that plastic cage. Just as soon as you go back to being human.”
Andrei thought it over for a moment, then he asked, “How can I trust you to not run away?”
“You want outta there? We’re your best chance. What’s the serum look like?”
“It is clear, like water. The Frenchman keep it in a safe in the wall behind chart. Just over there.”
Tacked up on the wall, the chart showed Andrei’s metabolic rate as he changed into a lycanthrope. Rick tore it away, let it fall to the floor. A digital safe was embedded in the plaster, the buttons arranged in rows of three, like a phone.
“Great. I don’t suppose you know the combination?”
Andrei grinned, and Rick thought he could detect the animal in it. “I pay attention. I watch real close. The Frenchman opens it all the time.”
“Well,” Rick asked with a shrug, “what is it?”
“Ah, no. I think I don’t give it to you. I think you let me out, and I will open safe. I want out of cage. I want for to be human all the time. Why would I lie to you?”
“I could think of a thousand reasons.”
“It easiest thing in the world. You let me out. They keys are in the desk drawer on a … what you call it … a circle.”
“A key ring?” Rick asked, opening the desk drawer.
“Yes. Ring for keys.”
“So I let you out to open the safe—then what? You attack me? Overcome me? I do have a gun. I could just shoot you on the spot.”
“But I have … oh, what is word, bargaining chit. I know where there is another weapon. A good weapon. If I let you have other weapon, you let me out so I open safe and get serum. I am human again. You watch me with weapon. Everyone happy as oysters.”
“I still don’t like it.”
“You got other choice?”
“Yeah, I let you rot in there.”
“That not a good choice.”
“Looking pretty righteous to me.”
“But if I am human again, then you get one more person to fight. Also, you get another bargaining chit. The serum. The army probably desires that, yes?”
“Yeah, they probably do. Where’s this weapon you think’s so great?”
“In filing cabinet, bottom part.”
The cabinet rested on its side at the end of the room. Rick opened the bottom drawer and removed a dart gun, fully loaded with tranquilizing darts.
“Whoa,” Rick said. “Like the big game hunters use?”
“They use it on me to make me sleep, and it always works.”
“How many darts does this thing hold?”
“Six. That’s six monsters we can force to go to sleep,” Andrei said, pacing his cell restlessly. “Now you let me out? Now I get you serum, and I get somewhere safe.”
“Looks pretty safe in that little cell of yours.”
“You hear things in here. Like things going boom, blowing up. If it’s bad in city …”
“Oh, it’s worse than you think.”
“. . . then I no want to be blown up when a gas explosion comes.”
Looking into the Siberian’s eyes, Rick didn’t think Andrei was lying. Then again, it could have been the beast within, using its wiles to get set free.
The heft of the dart gun in his hands made up his mind. He opened the desk drawer, pulling too hard and nearly dumping it. He caught it, but a large key ring spilled from inside, jangling to the floor. As Rick picked the keys up, he felt the reassuring weight of them in his hand. He walked over to the Plexiglas cage and began testing the keys in the locks. Within minutes, the door was opening with a pneumatic hiss. Andrei stepped out of his prison, stretching his arms.
“That feels wonderful,” he said. “Thank you, my friend.” He grabbed Rick, encircling him in a hairy bear hug. “I promise you I will be all better now. The shot … it will do the trick. No?”
“Hey, hey, buddy,” Rick protested, trying to escape from the big man’s clutches. “Watch it with the naked hugging, okay? How about opening that safe?”
Rick raised the dart gun and pointed it at Andrei’s barrel chest. The Siberian shrugged, still g
rinning as though giddy with the fresh air.
“Yes. Is time.”
Andrei punched several numbers into the safe, then turned the handle. Rick pushed him aside with the dart gun, and Andrei stepped away, hands in the air.
“Serum help me now, will it not?”
Rick pulled on the handle, keeping one eye on the Siberian and one on the opening safe. The door was heavy as he opened it, but he soon saw two shelves. One contained a stack of paperwork and a small stack of hundred-dollar bills, which Rick swiftly pocketed, adding to the thousands he had stolen earlier.
The other shelf held three rows of beakers full of a clear fluid. Rick left them secure inside the safe.
Andrei leaned against the outside wall of his Plexiglas cell, arms crossed.
“Looks like you knew what you were talking about, Andrei. I’ll get you out personally if this stuff works.”
“Get me out?” he asked, confused. “But I am already—”
Rick shot him with a dart. The feathered shaft stuck out of Andrei’s left hip. With fury burning in his eyes, the naked Siberian took one step toward Rick. He wavered, faltered on his second step, and fell to the floor.
“Sorry, buddy,” Rick said. “I’m not taking any chances.”
Setting the rifle aside, he grabbed Andrei’s legs and dragged him into the cell. The man was heavy, solid with muscle, and Rick struggled to turn him through the entryway. He left Andrei in the middle of the cell and shut the door; the mechanism hissed and the bolt clicked into place.
Rick returned to the safe and pulled out the papers. Then he sat behind the desk and began to read, praying there was an answer to their problem within their pages. He whistled as he perused them.
37
SEPTEMBER 18, 11:30 A.M.
Cathy really began to feel the ache in her thighs and calves as she steered her bike through the stalled and wrecked cars that blocked the exit to State Route 71 South. It had started as a faint burning sensation, a comfortable, familiar glow she recognized from her past exercise regimens. Her blood was pumping hard, touching places that hadn’t been stimulated in years. The lactic acid in her muscles pulsed. Her ass was also getting sore, unaccustomed to the shape and size of the bicycle seat.
Gritting her teeth, she fought the urge to stop, certain that she would cramp if she did. Chris was waiting for her downtown, and she raced with a passion she had never felt before in her life. The need to feel him in her arms again, if only for a moment, eased some of the agony. She’d never felt so maternal, so full of love for anyone … not even Karl when they had first married.
As she biked south, she thought about her son, how she had held him on the day he was born, the sweet milky scent of him. He had her eyes, and he had her love of old films and the theater. She recalled the last time they had attended a musical at the Aronoff Center (how long ago had it been? what was the show?), and tears welled up in her eyes. She shook her head, dispelling them when she felt a crick in her neck.
He had been her baby, her little boy, her awkward teenage son, her little, quiet man. He’d been so much to her, and what had she been to him? A traitor.
Never again, she vowed. Never again would she turn a blind eye.
She wondered where this surge of feeling had originated. Had it been there all along, lying dormant within her? In any case, she could see what was important now. Funny how that happened. Your world was turned upside down, shaken violently, and what was meaningful somehow floated to the top.
And she was going to grasp at those drifting emotions like the life preservers they were.
The dark clouds she’d noticed earlier were now clustering closer together, giving the daytime a twilight feeling. A storm was definitely on the way, and she would probably get soaked, cold, and miserable. But it wouldn’t stop her. Not from finding Chris. Not after she’d lived through so much.
As she passed a small quarry, she saw several nude people bobbing in the water, arms and legs outstretched in the classic dead man’s float. She remembered seeing several corpses in swimming pools back in Indian Hill, where every house had a pool. There’d been a few in the local lake as well. She hadn’t taken much notice of it before, but the sight of those bodies in the quarry brought the memory back.
As she continued down the highway, never going as fast as she would have liked, she wondered whether the beasts could swim, or if their bodies were too heavy and broad for their smallish arms. Maybe they sank like stones.
Had they leaped to their deaths, knowing they wouldn’t be able to swim in their monstrous states, or had they simply fallen in? Had they clawed at the sides of the quarry in a vain effort to escape?
She wondered if this would be the answer, if God would bring back the floodwaters and drown the evil world and all the cruel people in it. She wasn’t a religious person, but the thought held a certain charm for her, a simplicity in a world that was no longer simple.
As she entered the shadow of a train overpass, her bike hit something—a dead woman’s hand. The corpse was splayed on the pavement, just outside of a car door. Its back had been torn open between the shoulder blades, and most of the woman’s insides had been pulled out, displayed neatly on the road.
The sight was so horrendous that Cathy turned the wheel too hard and found herself losing her balance. The bike spun from beneath her, and she landed next to the body. The skin peeled from her left hand when she tried to stop her tumble, and her right kneecap smacked against the pavement. Crying out, she tucked herself into a ball and rolled, watching as her bike skidded away from her.
When she stopped moving, she checked herself. Other than a sore knee and a skinned hand, she didn’t detect any damage. She limped a bit as she walked back to her bicycle. It hadn’t sustained any real damage either.
Leaning against a Mustang convertible, she caught her breath, legs throbbing from the unfamiliar exercise. Her hand didn’t bleed much, but it stung like hell. She shook it, wiped it against the leg of her jeans.
Exhaling, she marveled at how good it felt to stop for a rest. The shade of the overpass felt more secure to her, as if she was hiding in plain sight. She stretched, pulling her limbs taut. Moaning softly, she sat on the hood of the Mustang.
Something moved on the overpass above her. A series of shadows scuttling back to their sanctuaries.
Cathy shivered, chastised herself for stopping.
She could see the Norwood Lateral ahead of her, which marked the halfway point to her destination. If she’d been asked a year ago whether she could bike that far, she would have denied it, laughing at the very concept. Now, despite her Jell-O legs, her sore, blistering hands, and her mental exhaustion, she knew she would make it downtown.
But would she be in time?
Taking a few stretches in preparation, she jogged in place for a couple of minutes. She massaged her thighs. Her leg muscles quivered, but there were no actual spasms yet. A good sign.
She climbed back onto her bike.
“Hey, lady.” A girl emerged from an ancient pickup truck that had run off the road several yards away. She looked like she was coming out of a cave, blinking and holding a hand to the side of her face. Her hair was a dirty brown, loose around her shoulders, trembling in the breeze. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old, and her floral-print cotton dress was torn and filthy.
Walking forward, the girl tilted her head, cocking it to the side, listening for something that Cathy couldn’t hear. Her fingers scurried like spiders against her thighs, as though she were playing the strains of a long-forgotten piano piece. Nervous tension emanated from her in almost visible waves.
“Hey,” she said, her voice low. “You seen anybody on the road?” She had a Southern twang.
Cathy shook her head, took a few tentative steps back as the girl stepped up to her. The stranger placed a thin arm on the handlebars of the bike. Cathy tightened her grip.
“No. I haven’t seen anybody along the highway. I saw some people in Indian Hill.”
“That where you’re from? That rich place?”
“Yes. And I need to get moving.”
“I got left here,” the girl said. “Goddamn family ain’t worth spit. They left me in the truck, said they was gonna look for someone else.”
Cathy’s eyes darted to the vehicle. Flies buzzed around the open bed of the truck, and on its dirty white paint job, a single crimson smear traversed from the passenger door to the bumper, a hideous racing stripe along the rusted-out side.
“How long have you been in there?”
“Couple days. We was going to the store for the groceries. I still got some left. You want some water? Or a pop?”
Cathy swallowed hard; her mouth and throat were parched. “A water might be nice.”
The girl took her hand and grinned at her, but there was no humor behind her smile. There was something else.
Something old and primeval.
Suddenly, Cathy didn’t want to go with the girl. She resisted, holding her bike tightly between her legs.
“Oh, come on,” the girl said. “I ain’t gonna hurt you none. What can I do? I’m just a kid.”
It was true. When Christian was her age, he had been perfectly harmless.
Slowly, Cathy stepped off the bike and allowed herself to be pulled along. “Just one quick water,” she said, her mouth feeling more and more like a desert. Even her voice sounded cracked and dry.
In the shadows of the overpass, something stirred. Then something else.
“My name’s Beth Blue. My folks call me Bethie, but I like Beth better. Do you know what’s happening? People were acting crazy, like they was animals. Did you see it?”
Cathy nodded. Each step brought them closer to the truck, and in the cloudy daylight, the stain along its side glowed almost a stop-sign red.
“Hell of a thing, wasn’t it? My daddy says it’s God punishing us. Ain’t no reason to lie. We’re his kin, and all. He says people are getting what they deserve. Here we are.”
They stopped at the edge of the truck. Someone was slumped forward over the steering wheel, and Cathy leaned forward to help him.
“Oh God, someone’s hurt,” she said.
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