Suffer the Children

by Craig DiLouie

  “I can’t believe it,” said David. The procedure had caused mono-neuropathy. The needle had pierced the vein at a bad angle, gone straight through, and damaged a nerve.

  “They took three units. After the first, I told them to stop, you can’t give more than a unit at a time, and they should give me something to replace the lost volume and prevent hypoperfusion. They asked if it would kill me. I said taking more than three units would probably kill me. So they took three on the nose.” Tears streamed down his cheeks and disappeared into his beard. “Do you know how much weight you lose when you give a pint of blood? A pound. ‘A pound of flesh, no more, no less.’ David, they took twenty-five percent of my blood. A quarter of my life.”

  He cried out in emotional pain and gasped.

  David turned away to give his friend a little dignity. “You’re in hemorrhagic shock. Gloria’s right. You need to go to the hospital.”

  “Not a chance. I’m staying right here.”

  “Did they say what the blood was for?”

  “For their children. Officer Stellar called it a payment.” He gripped his gun. “I’m calling it a loan.”

  Something clicked in David’s mind.

  Doug Cooper’s voice: They’re dead again. Your medicine didn’t work for shit. The medicine from the CDC. The vaccine.

  Nadine: Love brought them back to life. A sacrifice.

  “I, uh, think I need to call my wife.”

  “I’m glad you came, David. I just wanted to warn you.”

  “Warn me? About what?”

  “The police seized our records. Evidence, they said. Your name is on some of the autopsy reports.”

  David’s mouth went dry. “Oh shit.”

  “Yep. Keep the gun close.”

  And do what? Point it at a cop? Shoot him?

  “I honestly think I’d rather give the blood,” David said.

  “They might want more than a pound of flesh next time, my friend. People are out of their fucking minds. The suicide rate is still going off the charts, did you know that? Every single one a parent with slashed arms and thighs. Bled out. Always the same. No pills, no cars left running in locked garages. Not a single suicide note. Just arteries slashed with a straight razor. People are not right in the head.” Ben dismissed him with a wave of his good arm. “Now go. Go call Nadine. Keep her safe. I’ll be all right.”

  “I’ll check in with you again later.”

  “Fine. I’ll be here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Ben called after him as he headed toward the door. “One more thing, David. Possibly the most important thing. I got an e-mail from the CDC today. Big news. Someone found Herod itself. Turns out our friend is a parasite. Makes itself right at home in the brain, heart, nervous system, and stomach. Thought you might want to know.”

  “A parasite,” David echoed. A brand-new life form.

  Even now, there was something exciting about it. His mind raced with questions. Where did it come from? How had it infected everybody? Why did it only kill the children? How had it resurrected them?

  Ben said, “So whatever we did to those kids, at least we got that.”

  The cold air felt like a slap as he left the house. He was still reeling from everything Ben had told him. He stood in the driveway for a while, just breathing. Then he called Nadine.

  No answer. He called again. She answered on the fourth ring.

  “I’m with a patient,” she said.

  “I want to know what you’re doing. Is there a connection between blood and the children’s recovery?”

  After a long pause: “Yes.”

  David felt his day, which had started with magic and a sense of renewal, continue its rapid decay. “Are you transfusing them?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Where the hell are you?”

  “Stay home, darling. Rest.”

  “No. I’m coming to you. I need to see for myself what you’re doing.”

  “Please don’t. I’ll tell you everything later. I promise.”

  “Tell me this. Doug Cooper said the medicine didn’t work. You seemed to think that was happening a lot. So those smiling kids on TV are going to return to their morbid state. Is that right?”

  “Unless they get more blood.”

  “Jesus,” said David. He wanted to throw up.

  Another long pause. “All right. I’ll give you the address.”

  Minutes later, David was driving toward Ramona Fox’s house.

  He slammed his hand against the steering wheel.

  What a fool I was. What an idiot.

  He’d believed in the miracle. Everything was going to return to normal. The children. Him and Nadine. The power of love had healed the world’s gaping wound. As if by magic.

  It was all an illusion, a trick. Herod’s trick. It was a clever parasite. It took the children hostage to get what it wanted. And because it was essential to reanimation, there was no destroying it. To kill Herod was to destroy the children themselves.

  The sight of children in the playground was so mundane he nearly missed it. He slowed the car.

  Real, living children. Playing.

  “Oh God,” he said. They were beautiful.

  He pulled over and studied them through a chain-link fence. Six boys and four girls playing under the watchful eyes of their parents.

  There was nothing wrong with them. They looked normal. They laughed; it was children’s laughter. They swung across the monkey bars and whooshed down the slide.

  Only the adults struck him as strange. They stood at the edge of the play area with anxious smiles. Pale and haggard, they looked more like junkies looking to score than parents. Every so often they glanced at their watches. They didn’t talk to each other. They avoided making eye contact, as if they shared an embarrassing secret nobody wanted to acknowledge.

  Fear tingled along David’s spine. The children filled him with a superstitious awe. He kept expecting them to stop in unison and stare at him, like something out of a horror movie.

  Ben’s gotten into your head. You’re getting paranoid.

  Time to get back on the road. The children had returned to life; that was a fact. He needed to get to Ramona Fox’s house so he could understand the mechanism.

  A rash of gooseflesh broke out along his arms.

  The parents were all staring at him.

  His cell rang. They’re calling me!

  No. Of course they weren’t.

  Get a grip, doctor. He answered the phone.

  “David Harris,” he said.

  “She’s dead.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Shannon’s dead.” Charlie Donegal, crying. “My little girl’s dead.”

  SEVEN

  Nate

  4 days after Resurrection

  Last summer, Mom took him to the community pool. He put on a pair of goggles and swam along the gloomy bottom past prancing feet.

  I’m a shark, look out, everybody.

  He spun and looked up at the sunlight shimmering through the water. He swam toward it and broke the surface.

  Waking up from being dead was a lot like that.

  Timeless suspension, followed by a sense of everything moving. Everything.

  Mom was crying. Dad too. But smiling. They were happy to see him. Nate didn’t remember being born, but it must have been like this. Happiness and tears.

  And screaming. It hurt to be born.

  Fire ants in my brain!

  He coughed and coughed.

  Air filled his lungs again, but this time, he didn’t scream or cough. He sat up in his bed.

  He said, “I guess I fell asleep again.”

  Mom hugged him against her chest. It made him feel awkward, and he wriggled until she got the hint. He said, “I died again.” He looked at Dad. “I did. Right?”

  Dad just nodded.

  Nate thought about that for a few moments but came up with nothing.

  “Can I play with my Christmas presents now?”


  Mom and Dad looked at each other.

  “He remembers,” said Dad. Mom nodded with a big smile.

  “I told you he would. It’s the real him. Not a copy.”

  Nate frowned. He hated when Mom and Dad talked about him as if he weren’t there. Their staring made him feel funny. Of course he remembered the presents. Why wouldn’t he?

  He was the same old Nate. Was there a different Nate out there somewhere?

  “Can I go play?” Still a question, but urgent now. They were wasting time here.

  “Your father and I were thinking we would all do something together today.”

  “Okay.” He gave them a shrewd look. “Like what?”

  “Like maybe go to the park. Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

  The park. He liked the sound of that. Outside. “I feel great. Really. I’m not sick anymore.”

  “We should feed him first,” said Dad.

  “He just ate a big dinner, remember?”

  “That was last night.”

  “Not to him it isn’t.”

  Nate’s stomach growled. “I guess I could eat a peanut butter sandwich or something.”

  “It’ll have to be on Ritz crackers,” Mom told him. “There’s no bread. The store ran out. Is that okay?”

  “I guess.” Mom never asked him if it was okay. She just fed him. Even stuff he hated, his mom made him eat because it was good for him. Mom and Dad acting weird, the jarring jump from opening Christmas presents in the living room to waking up in his bed, even the store running out of something as constant as bread—nothing felt right.

  And no school—was it Saturday already? He didn’t recall going to school all week.

  Then he remembered his dad explaining to him that he and Megan had a disease. He was sick.

  His dad’s voice: Sick? Son, you could guess you were DEAD.

  So he’d died again. Wow. He knew deep in his bones death was bad, and he didn’t want to die, but death wasn’t very scary—it was, well, nothing. He had a vague memory of staring at the ceiling, but at the time he didn’t know he was staring, didn’t know it was a ceiling, and had no sense of time passing. The memory itself was only a flicker occurring just before he woke up.

  Death was weird.

  They left him alone long enough to get dressed. He went to the bathroom to pee and paused to study himself in the mirror. He didn’t look sick. He didn’t feel sick either. He felt just fine. Ready for anything.

  He went downstairs. His Giants hat was in its usual spot on a hook next to the front door. He put it on. The hat made him feel normal again.

  Mom put a plate of crackers on the kitchen table and sat with Dad, who was studying a yellow notepad. Dad smelled like cigarettes, a familiar smell, and alcohol, which wasn’t as much. Nate threw himself into his chair and stuffed a handful of crackers into his mouth. He chewed fast, washed them down with a gulp of milk, and reached for more.

  “Look at him go,” said Mom.

  “He’s a growing boy,” Dad told her.

  “I grew two inches last year,” Nate reminded them, his mouth bulging with food.

  Dad tapped the notepad and looked at Mom. “So this is everybody.”

  “A half pint gives each of them about an hour. So if everybody on the list gives one pint, we’ll have twelve hours with both of them.”

  “It’s not a lot. Half a day, total.”

  “Do you want to add any more names? Are we missing anybody?”

  Dad shook his head. “Wait. What about his teachers?”

  Nate perked up at this. They were talking about him.

  “Everybody’s going to ask them,” Mom said. “We need people we can count on to give. What about Otis?”

  “He’s got grandkids to look after.”

  “This might be all we can get. We should try to get it all now and store it. People are selling medicine on Craigslist, calling it ‘baby formula.’ The prices are crazy.”

  Dad said nothing. He grabbed a cracker off Nate’s plate and chewed it, glaring at nothing like he always did when he and Mom talked about money.

  Mom: “If we give them a pint a day, it’ll get us to Christmas.”

  Dad nodded.

  Mom: “What are we going to do after that?”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  “Ask them all to give another pint? And another?”

  “I said I’ll think of something! Don’t nag me!”

  Nate cowered. He hated when they fought in front of him, especially when he was the cause. If he and Megan hadn’t gotten sick, they wouldn’t be so upset.

  “I’ll make the calls today once the kids are asleep,” said Mom. She cleared Nate’s plate. “You still hungry?”

  The boy stared at his father’s neck, where a vein pulsed.

  “Nate? You want more?”

  He shook his head.

  Dad rose from the table. “I’ll wake up Megan.”

  “Nate’s already been up for a while,” said Mom. “Give her a little less than half.”

  “All right.” Dad took a bottle out of the refrigerator and trudged upstairs.

  “We’ll take a nice walk in the park,” Mom said to Nate. “Would you like that?”

  “Are you and Dad going to die too?”

  “Of course not. Why do you say that?”

  “Dad has cotton taped over his arm. I know what that means. He had a blood test. And both of you look really white.”

  Mom hugged him. He hugged her back, his eyes big and watery.

  “We’re not sick, Nate. We’re not going to die.”

  “But you might.”

  “One day, we will. We’re all on borrowed time. But not for a long, long time. Long after you and Megan have grown up. You’ll be a doctor and married with your own kids by then.”

  Nate nodded. He knew what borrowing was, but how did one borrow time? Were you supposed to give it back? He liked the sound of it, though. He made a mental note to look for chances to say it with a serious look on his face, like a grown-up.

  “If I become a doctor, maybe I could heal you, and then you wouldn’t die.”

  “Oh, Nate, you have no idea how happy it makes me to hear you—”

  Upstairs, Megan screamed.

  Nate wanted to run upstairs and help his sister, but Mom wouldn’t let him go, to the point where she had to forcibly hold him back. The more he struggled, the tighter she hugged him, until he couldn’t breathe.

  “I love you, Nate,” Mom whispered in his ear.

  “Let me go,” he whined.

  The screaming stopped.

  Dad came back downstairs with Megan.

  “Nate!” she howled with glee.

  He smiled with relief. “Hi, Megan.”

  Mom was already handing him his coat to put on. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

  “Wait! Dad! The helicopter! Can we bring it?”

  “It’s already in the car, sport.”

  “Excellent! Come on, let’s go!”

  Mom herded the kids into the Durango while Dad went out back to get Major, who bounded into the backseat and spun in a circle, barking until Nate calmed him down with a hug.

  “Good boy, good boy,” he said.

  The day was looking up. It was cold, but the sun was out. It was a good day for playing. Nate had already forgotten that just minutes ago, he’d been dead.

  But his parents argued during the drive, making him tense and edgy. Something about Grandma and Grandpa wanting to spend time with him and Megan if they were going to give medicine. Dad said he didn’t like conditions and demands.

  Nate didn’t like it either. Why would Grandpa withhold medicine from him and Megan? On the other hand, all he wanted in return was to see them. What was the big deal?

  His stomach flipped when they pulled into the park. Nate scanned the faces of the few kids running around the playground but didn’t see any of his friends.

  “I wish Keith was here,” he grumbled.

  “I’ll cal
l his mother, and we’ll set something up.”

  “Okay.”

  Nate was dying to show Keith the helicopter, even though a part of him was glad his best friend wasn’t going to be at the park today, because Keith was also the kind of kid who broke things. He said he was just clumsy, but Nate didn’t believe that. Keith also lied sometimes; Nate often couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth. When Keith promised something, it didn’t mean anything. And whenever Nate believed a lie, he felt stupid, and that wasn’t fair.

  Keith was one terrific hockey player, though. Possibly the best ever, in Nate’s view. He could shoot a puck to the moon.

  “I’m going to make a snowman,” Megan announced.

  “That’s a great idea,” Nate said with a smile.

  She beamed at this and kicked the back of Mom’s seat until Mom told her to stop. She said hopefully, “You can help me make it if you want to.”

  “Dad and I are going to fly my new helicopter.”

  “But I want to fly it.”

  “You’re too little to fly it. You can watch us, though, okay?”

  Megan crossed her arms and turned away with a humph.

  Dad parked the car and let Major out for a run while Mom got Nate and Megan out. By the time Nate ran around to the back of the car, Dad already had the helicopter in his hands, a sleek olive-green SuperCobra. He begged for details about how it worked. Dad said it could go up, down, left, right, forward, and backward. The lithium battery was charged and good for ten minutes of flying. The transmitter required AA batteries; Dad had already put those in. Dad said it used the latest gyroscope technology to keep stable in the air. He said it was controlled using radio waves, so they could fly it outside.

  “And check this out,” said Dad. “You wanted to know if it fired anything, right?”

  He pressed a button, and the helicopter’s cannon lit up with a red LED light. The sound of rapid gunfire roared from the toy.

  “Wow,” Nate whispered. He pictured the helicopter doing a low-level strafing run against a horde of zombies. He needed to fly it now; the wait was killing him.

  Dad showed him how it worked. Nate took the toy and experimented until soon he had the helicopter buzzing through the air, its LED cannon firing, while Mom videotaped him with her digital camera. Megan demanded a turn until Mom carried her crying to the playground, where she shrugged it off and started playing. Major got a workout barking and chasing the chopper. Major was supposed to be on a leash, but Dad said the park rules didn’t matter anymore. Nate smiled at his dad, who smiled back.