The Product Line (Book 1): Product

by Ian McCain

  He takes a few longer strides before pushing himself to jump back up onto the overhead rails. He moves like a graceful cat through the tunnel and propels himself forward and up as if gravity has no effect on him. The speed and rate of his rise through the air is so rapid that he has to grab the underside of a support rail to prevent himself from crashing into the ceiling of the tunnel. In the process, his forearm slides against a jagged piece of metal, and Tayvon is awash in a pain so fierce that he can’t imagine it possible. He squats on the railing cradling his forearm against his chest, watching as a thick stream of blood courses out from his arm. The smell is enticing but also repellent, as if his most favorite meal has been left out to spoil and sour.

  Another train starts to make its way down the tracks, the more consistent subway traffic providing clear evidence that the morning has come and the workday has begun for so many of the city’s inhabitants. As the train slides underneath him, big drops of blood fall onto the roof of the speeding train, splashing in slow motion on the dingy gray metal. Then before his eyes the deep gash in his arm starts to knit itself back together. The loose flaps of separated skin start to open and close like a fish gasping for its final breath. After a few gasps, the wound closes altogether, and when Tayvon wipes the congealed dried blood from his arm there is no evidence of the laceration, just healthy perfect skin.

  --Ha.

  He lets out a large toothy grin. He cannot help but smile. He has spent his whole life as the son of a junkie whore, every night wishing he was something more, wishing to be something special—to be a big man. He wanted to matter. Now, whatever this is, this change, it’s brought him a gift. Some kind of X-Men superpower shit. It’s exciting, No matter what tomorrow brings, he knows one thing: that from this point forward, he is going to matter.

  Chapter 18

  Antonios has spent the last few days making his way across the countryside of Romania, moving at night and guided by the stars toward Constanja, the Black Sea port for Romanian shipping. During the night he runs as swiftly as his feet will carry him towards the south-east. He moves like a blur of smoke in the dim light of the moon. During the day he finds shelter in rocky formations, or buried under loose soil, anything that can protect him from the burn of the sun.

  A compulsion to feed is coming over him. What started a day before as an ember has started to grow into a small fire. He knows that this will only become worse unless he takes in more blood. He knows it as he now knows so many things. His mind is working in a new way now—no longer are his the inexperienced thoughts of a child.

  His only option is to find something else to feed on, be it man or beast. In an effort to replenish himself without once again having to hurt someone, he decides instead to take a moment to track down a rabbit that he has become acutely aware of. Never a strong hunter and lacking a bow or rifle, he knows that this pursuit could be time-consuming. Other than the clothes on his back, which were stolen from the dead, and the small dull blade in his pocket he is rather ill equipped for a hunt.

  Regardless, he starts to focus on the sounds of the rabbit. Its tiny heart beats rapidly against the background of forest noises. The calls of nocturnal wildlife give way to the sound of the rabbit’s movement. He can hear quite clearly each tiny foot as it gingerly makes contact with the ground, its delicate hops as it moves along the forest ground foraging for food.

  Rather than grabbing up a stone or stick to try to throw at the rabbit, Antonios decides to pounce from above. Once he gauges the distance to the rabbit he takes a small running start and hurls himself toward the rabbit, a clear thirty-foot jump. He lands on the rabbit with his palms forward and snatches it up by its neck. The rabbit struggles, trying desperately to free itself from his grasp. Antonios squeezes the base of its neck and crushes its spine. The animal drops limp in his hand, its limbs unusable, its heart still beating furiously as fear clutches its being.

  Rabbit has always been one of his favorite meals. Antonios loved the flavor of the winter stew his mother would prepare—its combination of leeks, herbs, potatoes and fresh rabbit was fragrant and delicious—but he lacks the tools to create fire as well as the ingredients and recipe to fashion a stew. Forgetting about the blade in his pocket and eager to quench the fire in his belly, he tears a small rip in the animal’s throat. The skin splits easily between his fingers as if he were gently tugging the page of a book. Once the skin is opened and blood is bubbling out, he latches his mouth on to the wound and drinks deeply.

  The flavor is horrifying, as if each drop is made of human waste. The blissful joy of feeding that he was expecting is instead replaced with a painful wrenching of his stomach and the emptying of bile and blood onto the ground in front of him. His heart races as it pumps, searing beats of angry blood into his head. This pain is punishment for his unwillingness to feed from the proper source.

  When his body has stopped convulsing and the congealed and jellied evidence of the animal’s blood has completely left his system Antonios is faced with a new panic. He must feed, and the only thing that can possibly sate his hunger is the blood of men. The whispers bubble up inside his mind.

  You must feed.

  You must eat or you will perish.

  He knows that he must eat, that there is a finality to his existence if he does not find blood soon. So he scans the horizon looking for anything that might indicate the presence of people. In the distance smoke billows into the night sky and orange firelight glows, though he imagines that the light is far less bright than his eyes perceive it to be. He sets his mind to one purpose. Feeding.

  His feet carry him swiftly along the grass and through the trees. He floats downhill from the tree-line and moves silently toward the encampment. As he gets close enough to see the men, but still much farther away than their eyes allow to see out into the woods, he begins to assess the situation. His child’s mind is all but gone. He has the body of a man and the instincts of a killer, but still feels the cries of his loving mother in the back of his mind. Begging for him to remain a “good boy”.

  No matter the requests her memory puts on him, he must feed. Somehow he knows that something terrible will happen if he does not. So he instead begins to form a plan. These men will eventually tire and take to sleep. He will use that opportunity to take one, steal him away from the group and hopefully keep the killing somewhat humane. Almost equal to his desire to feed is his desire to live, and though he believes in his core that he is responsible for the extermination of the remainder of his village, he does not yet have the confidence that should exist with his masculine frame.

  So he waits.

  He listens.

  As his heightened hearing pulls the sounds out from their conversation, what he notices almost immediately is that these men are not from Romania. Their language is different, their skin is darker, and they have a scent, a smell of oil and musk. Furriers perhaps? Traders. Their horses are lined with pelts and other goods and they have an ample reserve of weaponry, either for hunting or defending their goods.

  He does not understand their words, but begins to listen intently as they talk, his mind making associations with their movements—where they look when they make sounds, what they signal to, what statements prompt laughter or anger.

  The jumbled sounds of an unfamiliar language begin to melt away and give rise to a new awareness that Antonios is starting to understand their words. He quietly mouths the breathless words himself as he listens in on them.

  --Banek, you would be lucky if a woman opened the door for you, lest her thighs be spread.

  The others both laugh. Banek stands up.

  --My cock has made its way ’twixt many thighs.

  The third man tears off a piece of salted dried meat in his mouth and while laughing adds his thoughts to the mix.

  --Aye, a few bits of silver can open many a thing.

  All three men laugh at the comment and nod in agreement. Banek loudly announces that he must relieve himself and turns to away to urinate.

>   --Hmm, perhaps the goat has turned.

  He touches his stomach and lets out a rather foul burp.

  --Aye, take to the woods a bit, I do not want to spend another night taking breath from shit-filled air!

  --I agree. Into the woods with you.

  --And keep your noise down upon return. I am through for the night.

  Banek makes a gruff sound and is then taken by a pang of urgency and walks into the woods towards Antonios’ location.

  This is Antonios’ chance, his best opportunity to steal this Banek character away from his compatriots. He will not have much time, nor will he want to kill the man so close to the others. No, he will need to subdue the man and take him far away from the others, so that should he end up in some sort of blood rage as he did before the others’ lives will be spared.

  Antonios stalks closer toward the man, his feet moving quickly but falling with a sound as soft as leaves dropping from the branches above. As he gets closer the urge inside him starts to burn, compelling him to simply pull back the man’s head and chew into his throat. He can feel the man’s heartbeat on the hairs of his arm and hear the gentle rhythmic whooshing of blood throughout his body. This man, this food, it should be eaten now, he thinks. But his thought is immediately followed by the memory of his mother and her eyes when watching that demon kill her.

  Is that what he has become now, a demon? Some awful bloodthirsty monster? Some wretched creature unable to stop itself from killing…

  He remembers Eliska’s eyes and how sad they looked when they set her ablaze. He recalls that she did not look like an evil demon or monster until her life was so close to ending, then the demon came out. Perhaps, he thinks, it is this that makes the evil manifest, a closeness to death. Everything needs to eat in order to sustain life. If I do not eat, then I too will near death and perhaps loose the demon inside me.

  He fights back the thought of killing the man where he is squatting over the ground. Instead Antonios lunges up behind the man, wrapping his arm around his neck and pulling it tightly so that only a brief grunt escapes his mouth before it is cut off. A shout comes from the nearby campsite.

  --Banek, please, I do not need to know the difficulty of your shitting!

  Banek drops limp in Antonios’ arms, completely unconscious. Antonios is familiar with this way to choke a man, though he has never successfully implemented it himself. He has endured several fights with other village children who put him to ground numerous times with it.

  For his size, Antonios finds Banek surprisingly light. Light enough that he can be carried with one arm. Antonios opts instead to throw the man over his shoulder and runs the way he came from and far from the earthen road the man and his companions have been traveling. After a few moments he approaches the top of the tree-line, where the campsite is but a distant point in the horizon, a mere firefly in the blackness of the night sky.

  Antonios drops Banek to the ground. His hunger is nearly frenzied at this point, each thought mixed with the inexplicable desire to drink of this man, but before he feeds he commits himself to spending a few more moments evaluating his hunger, his buried desires and to reflect on the events with Eliska.

  All these changes—his body, his hunger, his strength, the demon—it is clearly all connected. Perhaps the demon did pass something, some piece of itself onto Antonios. But alongside these changes he is still to a large extent himself. He still loves his mother and family, he still remembers his prayers and the Bible. He can recall with great clarity any moment from his brief life.

  So if the demon is now inside me, then I too must also still be here. Perhaps it was something added, but nothing removed. Which would stand to reason why there is this new hunger, it is the sustenance the demon requires to survive.

  Banek begins to stir, returning slowly to consciousness with painful coughs and gasps. He is confused by the young man seated across from him. A young man covered in dirt and whose face and chest is painted from his cheeks to his trousers in dried animal blood.

  --What… echht, eccht… Who… Echht!

  Banek coughs as he tries to move air past his throat. In Antonios’ haste and as a result of his augmented strength, he has done far more damage than he intended to do.

  Antonios watches as Banek looks for a weapon, a stick, a rock, something he can hurl or swing at Antonios.

  --Who are… echht… Who are you?

  Antonios finishes his thoughts, weighing his next steps, all while the Virus tears at him to feed. All while it pushes him to consume this man.

  --What have you done?

  His final thought before responding to Banek: If the demon must be fed for me to keep what remains of myself, then so be it. Antonios’ mouth moves and from it comes Banek’s native tongue, a language unfamiliar to Antonios a few short hours ago, but now, like so many things, burned into his mind.

  --I am sorry, sir, but I am simply doing what must be done.

  On that note Antonios lunges toward Banek and slices through his throat and windpipe with his small dull pocket knife. A knife given to him by his father three years prior. A blade sharp enough to make intentions manifest, but dull enough to spare harm through error or faltering judgment. As the shock of the blade passing through flesh settles in, Banek falls backwards, his arms flailing up and down like an injured bird struggling to take flight. He chokes as the blood rushing from the wound in his neck also courses into his windpipe, drowning him with his own essence while the rest is eagerly sucked down by Antonios.

  The hot thick blood spills into Antonios’ mouth and he once again feels the bliss, that warm and loving embrace wrapping every inch of his body in contented joy. He knows this is the demon’s reward, a way for him to accept that he is now a man of split purpose, human and also not. He is Man and Beast made together in one body, and this bliss, this deceptive joy is the demon’s way of hoping to encourage its cohabitant to abandon altogether his humanity and empty another person’s life into his belly.

  Antonios loses himself in the pleasure.

  Chapter 19

  Ernie stands on the corner of a rooftop just outside the source of the bittersweet stink of Virus in the air. He was initially concerned that he would not be able to locate the building before the night gave way to morning, especially considering the run-in with Marie. He had found it tougher to track the scent while also focusing on how he might handle his daughter and her newfound awareness of his existence. She will begin to look for him again and start asking questions that could lead to more problems for him down the road.

  Gideon demanded that Ernie sever all ties to his previous life and was willing to help further this deception with Marie by carrying out Ernie’s falsified death. However, that was under the pretense that he would never see her again.

  His personal issue with Marie aside, the tracking of the Virus’ trail has also proven to be more difficult than initially expected. Several paths and tributaries of the Virus’ scent snaked off in different directions, leading him down a handful of different tracks, until he found a larger vein of vapor in the air where several of the trails coalesced. He figured that this must be where the people were coming from or going to. Perhaps some sort of social center, or commune, or maybe even a feeding ground? But now, standing on the nearby roof, looking at the building, he is certain that he has found it.

  His eyes and nose work together in a sort of synesthesia allowing him to see the spider-like cloud of Virus hovering over the area. The haze sends small snaking legs of Virus molecules off into the alley and streets surrounding it. These are the remnants of other infected, shadowed scent trails moving into the city, or from the city to the building.

  As he looks at the building in front of him, he cannot believe his eyes. He did not know where the trail would take him or what he would find at the end of it, but certainly he did not expect to see what he does see.

  In front of him is the Transitions building, a multi-story outreach center for the homeless.

  He strains to
survey it and his irises become deeply lined with a dark reddish black. Wispy crimson fingers of blood reach out from his irises into the whites of his eyes. Whirling vapors of Virus snake out from windows and building cracks. There is a ridiculous amount of security, even at the highest levels of the building. Exterior cameras and motion sensors line the architectural molding between each floor. And the rooftop exit is barred from the outside. Besides violating fire code, it is a clear sign that the occupants are meant to be kept inside.

  He scans from the lower levels to the higher levels and sees that there is a rather abrupt change. The third floor appears to have standard studio-style apartment housing. There are simple appointments inside the room, lamps, sofas, televisions. Most look like the interior of a two-star hotel off the Long Island Expressway. They are clearly inhabited. The rhythmic movement of breathing bodies currently occupying the beds and the faint glow of healthy circulator systems.

  The individuals that he can sense through the thick concrete walls and glass of the structure tell him that there are dozens of people asleep on the floor above. Numerous cots or beds on the floor. He can barely see any break in the blinds or curtains that would allow him to see into any of the rooms, save for one spot on the fourth floor third window from the right. There is a single blind that has caught on something, creating a gap no bigger than a dime. The light inside the room is dim, and Ernie would never have been able to see into the room from this distance, but considering all the other enhancements, he decides to push himself.

  He focuses with all his ability and concentrates with all his might to push his vision further, to extend his will and sight into the room. The muscles around his eyes tense and the red wisps of blood vessels empty all their color into the whites of his eyes, turning them deep reddish black.

  He is able to peer like a sniper ratcheting his optics to the next level of zoom. The room, or perhaps the whole floor, is filled with hospital beds and machines. He can only make out one row of beds, but the bodies on this floor are set up in very close proximity to another. He tries to take in more details and pauses on the familiar face of a woman Ernie has interacted with several times in his life on the streets. He had stolen her hat shortly before he was infected, and never had the opportunity to return it. The thought makes him sad, not simply because he stole from her and she was crazy, but because he recalled using it as makeshift toilet paper shortly thereafter. It was a cruel joke with no punchline.