“He’ll still be pretty groggy,” Dr. Owens warned her, “and I doubt if he’ll make much sense. But I’m sure seeing you will make him feel a whole lot better.” She stopped, checking a sheet of paper taped to the wall beside one of the doors. On it was a list of six names. “A. Palatazin,” Dr. Owens read. “Good thing your name is one of those that you don’t for—” She turned, realizing that Jo had already stepped past her into the room. Dr. Owens saw no need to linger. There was still a lot of work to do.
Jo stood in the room, looking from bed to bed. In the dim light that filtered through drawn blinds, she saw only strangers, people asleep, a couple of them wearing casts. One of them, a young woman, moaned softly in her sleep. She had a sudden crazy thought—What if Andy wasn’t here at all? What if the records had been mixed up? The doctor wrong? Everything gone topsy-turvy in the confusion?
And then she looked over at the bed across the room just underneath the window and took a tentative step forward. No. That couldn’t be Andy lying there, hooked up to IV tubes and a bag of blood. That was a much older man, his face ashen white against the pillow. She took another step. He was covered over by a dark blue blanket, but she could see a crisscrossing of bandages at his throat just under the chin, and she put a hand to her mouth to stifle a cry. In another bed a young black man stirred uneasily, his arm and leg in casts connected to a series of lines and pulleys. He opened his eyes, stared at her for a few seconds, then closed them again with a soft sigh.
Jo stood over Andy and traced a finger across his cheek. His face, as pale as it was, seemed beautiful to her. There seemed to be much more gray in his curly halo of hair. She reached under the blanket and sheet, found his wrist, and felt the pulse beating there. It was weak, as fragile as the preciousness of life itself. But what a marvelous thing it was, what a wonder. Life was achingly short, but that was the challenge of it—to do the best with it in the time allowed, to age and change and grow. And that was something the Undead could never do. That was a gift denied them.
Andy’s fingers moved. She grasped’ his hand, wouldn’t let go. His eyes slowly opened. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, then turned his head toward her with obvious effort. When he focused on her, he said in a hoarse whisper, “Jo?”
“It’s me. It’s me,” she said. “I’m here, Andy. Everything’s all right now. I’m alive. Gayle’s alive. And thank God, so are you…”
“Alive?” he whispered. “No, it’s a dream…”
She shook her head, tears brimming from her eyes. “It’s real, Andy. The marines came and took us out before the earthquake started. Tommy told me what happened.”
“Tommy? Where is he?” He blinked, unsure whether he was dreaming or not.
“Downstairs. He’s fine.”
Palatazin stared at her for a long moment, then his face collapsed like the shattering of a mirror. He took her hand in both of his and pressed it to his lips. “Oh, God,” he whispered. “You’re not dead…you’re not dead…”
“It’s all right,” Jo said softly and ran a hand over his forehead and into his hair. “Everything’s going to be fine now, you’ll see…”
It was another minute or so before he could speak again, and then only in a quiet, faraway voice that told her he was trying desperately to hang on to consciousness. “The vampires,” he said. “They’re gone.”
“Gone? How?”
“The ocean. The saltwater. It roared in and…I think some of them must’ve gotten out, but not many…not many. I think—I hope—their king is dead. I didn’t see him after the quake started, but…” He remembered Father Silvera and the young man and the female vampire who had found the strength to deny her own existence and thus had saved both he and Tommy. He would pray for all of them because they’d all been brave, and the combination of their actions had helped stop the advance of the vampiric army. He thought that Father Silvera might have survived, but he doubted it. He was certain the priest had died fighting, and that the king vampire had been destroyed either in the collapse of the castle or by that huge, swirling cauldron of saltwater. If not…Palatazin closed his eyes. He couldn’t think about that possibility, not yet. But for now the cancerous spread of them had been halted.
“What are we going to do now?” Jo asked him.
He opened his eyes. “We go on,” he said. “We find another place to live. We put what’s happened behind us. But we don’t forget. They didn’t think we were so strong. They didn’t think we could even fight back. But we did. And we can again if we have to.” He paused, then smiled slightly. “Think I can find that chief of police job in some little town now? A very long way from here.”
“Yes,” she said softly and returned his smile. “I know you can.”
He nodded. “I’m…not going to be the same for a while, Jo. You’re going to have to help me understand and…deal with what’s happened…”
“I will.”
“And Tommy, too,” he said. “His parents are gone, he’s still not even sure what happened to him that night, or how he got to us. Maybe it’s…best that he never remembers, but I think someday he will. We’ll both have to be strong for him.”
“Yes,” she promised.
He squeezed her hand and kissed it. “My good Jo,” he whispered. “Strong like a rock.”
“I won’t leave you,” she told him. “I’ll sleep downstairs on the floor if I have to, but I won’t leave until you’re on your feet again.”
“God save the doctor who tries to throw you out,” Palatazin said. And looking up at her shining face, he knew there were things he should tell her, but he couldn’t, not yet. He knew the vampires were gone, yes, but the Evil that had created them and given them power lived on, somewhere in the darkest limits where the world trembled between night and day, where the things that ruled the court of midnight held sway. The Evil would be back, in some different form perhaps, but with the same terrible purpose. It had learned a lesson this time and was not likely to repeat its mistake.
And his father stalked the monastery ruins atop Mount Jaeger along with the other grinning things from his boyhood village. Someday his father would have to find release, all of them would, and Palatazin felt sure that if it were not his own hand that guided the stake, then it would be someone else’s, perhaps…Tommy’s hand, grown older and stronger and wiser. But those were all things of the future, and he didn’t want to think about them just yet.
Palatazin’s vision was blurring around the edges. Jo had never looked more beautiful; life had never seemed more precious a gift.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek, a tear falling from her face onto his, and when she lifted her head, she saw he’d gone back to sleep.
THREE
At exactly ten o’clock Gayle quietly left her bunk in the barracks and made her way to the door. There were still people awake and whispering in the darkness, but they paid her no attention. A child cried out suddenly, awakened from a nightmare, and Gayle heard a woman’s voice whispering soothingly as she reached the door and slipped out into the cool desert darkness.
Stars blazed in the sky, but there was no moon, a fact Gayle was grateful for. Only a few figures moved along the road. Spare lights burned in other barracks, and an occasional cigarette glowed in the night. She was rounding the far side of the building when she was caught by the bright, white glow of headlights. A jeep carrying two SPs rolled to a halt beside her, and she stopped immediately.
“Ten o’clock curfew, Miss,” one of them said. “Hadn’t you heard?”
“Oh, a curfew? I’m sorry, I didn’t know I was breaking any rules. I’ve just been out walking for a while, to think.”
“Uh-huh. What barracks are you assigned to, please?”
“That one, way over there.” She pointed to a building about sixty yards beyond them and across the road.
“You’d best get in for the night, miss. Climb in and we’ll take you over.”
“No, r
eally I…” She paused, frowning, and tried her best to summon up some tears. All she got was a glazed expression, but she figured it was probably good enough. “I…need to be alone. Please. I need to think.”
“Ten o’clock curfew, Miss,” the SP said. He checked his wristwatch. “It’s ten-oh-eight right now.”
“I…lost my husband in the earthquake,” Gayle said softly. “I just needed to get out and walk. The walls were closing in on me.”
The first SP nodded, glanced over at the other one, and then back to Gayle. His face had softened a fraction, but his eyes were still hard. “I’m sorry to hear about your husband, ma’am, but I’m afraid you’ll have to obey the curfew like everyone else. Of course, I don’t suppose it would hurt if you finished your walk, do you, Roy?”
“Nope,” the other SP said and gunned the engine.
“Okay, then. But afterward, straight to your barracks, Ma’am. Good night.” He gave her a quick salute and then the jeep had rolled on past her, its red taillights flaring briefly before it turned to the left and disappeared.
Shit! Gayle thought. Have to watch out for those cops! She walked quickly around the barracks, the noise of her footsteps disquietingly loud on the pavement. She kept looking back over her shoulder, but the SPs didn’t return. Why would they? she asked herself. They bought my story.
She found the jeep parked on the other side of a large green dumpster. The keys were in the ignition, and under the passenger seat there was a canteen and a few items rolled up in cellophane. She tore the packet open and found a small penlight, a compass, and a map of the base that showed the desert terrain and lava rock that lay to the east. It looked like hard country, but she had no choice. Chaplain Lott had helped her as much as he could—now getting there was her responsibility.
Okay, she told herself. Time to go. She flicked on the light and studied the map for a minute, then found an easterly heading on the compass and started the engine. The noise seemed loud enough to wake up every marine within ten miles. She saw a light come on in a building just a few yards away and, with fear galloping through her, she pushed down on the accelerator. She was determined to head as near due east as she could, but several times she saw the lights of an oncoming truck or jeep ahead, and she either turned off onto another road or stopped behind a building for a few minutes to wait and muster her courage. The further east she went, the more scattered and dark the buildings became. Finally she could look back over her shoulder at most of the base. Ahead of her, like black hulks in the starlight, loomed a ridge of mountains directly in her path. The pavement ended at a group of sheds surrounded by a high barbed-wire fence. Gayle turned off the road and started across the desert, the jeep’s tires jubbling over rocks and sagebrush.
A monstrous apparition suddenly came sweeping over the mountains, red and green and white lights flashing. It was another Hercules transport plane, coming in low toward the airstrip. She could see the green cockpit glow, and the noise of the plane’s passage deafened her. Then it had passed over, a wave of scorched air churning behind it, the roar slowly receding. Gayle recalled what Lott had said about the observation towers and immediately cut her headlights. The night enveloped her, but soon she could see fairly well just by the starlight. The desert stretched out on all sides, the mountains coming up to meet her. Several times she had to risk flicking on the penlight to check the compass.
An observation tower came up on her right frighteningly close, like an oil derrick topped by a black square of glass. Gayle angled away from it, expecting a piercing shaft of light, but none came. Cactus-strewn foothills began to rise out of the earth, carrying her into the mountains. She found what seemed to be no more than a rutted, boulder-strewn goat track, hardly wide enough for the jeep, but she started up along it. She became aware of a faint chuck-chuck-chuck that seemed to be steadily drawing closer. She stopped the jeep’s engine. A helicopter passed overhead, flying slowly, and vanished toward the west.
Soon she passed near a second observation tower perched high on the mountain. The other side of the mountain was far rougher terrain—deep gullies, cracked earth, a scattering of high, soft dunes. She wondered where she’d go when—and if—she made it off the base. Las Vegas? Flagstaff? Phoenix? She had no money nor ID, nothing left in the world but the clothes she wore. She couldn’t even prove she was a survivor of the quake, much less a reporter. If she went ambling into some small newspaper office talking about vampires, they’d either kick her ass out or call the men in white coats. But she had to try. Surely there were a lot of stragglers who’d made it out of L.A. on their own, who had gotten to telephones and started calling friends and relatives with chilling stories to tell. There was going to be a lot of scoffing—mass hysteria, had Lott said?—but if the stories were repeated often enough, by hundreds of people, every editor in the nation would have to start paying attention. It would first be a matter of convincing somebody to loan her a typewriter and some desk space in a newspaper office, and if that place didn’t take the story, she’d go on to the next, and the next, and the next one after that. Hell, she thought, she could wash dishes and live in a fleabag motel if she had to, but she was determined to be at the forefront when the story broke. Eventually somebody would buy it, and she could work her way up from there. In a year she thought she’d be able to write her own ticket, possibly with the New York Times or Rolling Stone. In any case, a publication based as far away from California as she could get.
A helicopter suddenly came out of the night from the south, flying less than fifty feet from the ground. It passed over her with a thunderous racket, frightening Gayle so much she hit the brakes. The helicopter immediately started veering back, and Gayle realized they must’ve seen the brake lights flash. She pressed her foot to the floorboard, knowing there was no place to hide out here. The land was miserably bare, a series of sand dunes and red rock ridges ahead of her. The helicopter swept back over her again. Grit blinded her for a few seconds, and when she cleared her eyes, she saw the copter coming back for a third pass. A searchlight blazed down from the copter’s underbelly and began a long, slow sweep.
Gayle zigzagged desperately. Then the searchlight had crept up behind her, glancing off the jeep. It came back and held, blinding her with its intensity. Over the combined roar of the jeep’s engine and the copter’s blades, she heard a voice amplified through a loudspeaker command, “Pull over! You’re in violation of martial law! Halt immediately.”
Gayle spun the wheel to the side and veered out of the light. If they stopped her, she knew she wouldn’t have another chance to get off the base. Hot and dazzling, the light found her again. Above her the voice took on new menace. “…in violation of martial law. If you don’t stop right now, you will be stopped.”
Christ! she thought. What are they going to do, shoot me? Maybe a warning shot, or perhaps they’d try to hit the tires, but surely they wouldn’t shoot a civilian! She was going to have to call their bluff. The wind whipped into her face, a maelstrom of dust and sand churning around her from the copter’s rotors. She was going up over a cactus-stubbled ridge, the tires shuddering over purple rock. She heard a high thrumming sound and winced. About five yards to the left she’d seen sparks and dust fly in an orderly line—bullets. She was filled with rage, and when the next row of bullets fired from a machine gun with pinpoint accuracy struck the ground just ahead of her, she realized they were trying to make her turn. She kept going straight ahead.
At the crest of the ridge, she felt the jeep shudder madly. The wheel shook free from her hands, and she knew the bastards had hit a tire. She fought for control as the jeep hurtled over the ridge and down. It fishtailed to the right, and through the churn of sand she saw what the helicopter had been trying to turn her away from—a high barbed-wire fence at the bottom of the ridge and beyond it a flat plain stubbled with scrub and cactus. The limits of the base. She spun the wheel back, having an instant to fear that the fence might be electrified, then the jeep had crashed into it, flattening and r
oaring over it. The copter screamed past, trying to hover in her path. Unintimidated, Gayle drove straight ahead and underneath it, leaving the copter whirling like an angered insect. It found her again and stayed with her for another few minutes until she passed a large sign on a post driven deep into the sand. She glanced back at it and saw in the backwash of the copter’s light the words U.S. GOVERNMENT PROPERTY—NO TRESPASSING BEYOND THIS POINT. The copter came down low on her, the searchlight striking her savagely in the eyes. Then it veered away slowly, in defeat. The light went out.
Gayle didn’t reduce her speed. Less than a mile later the left rear tire spun off the wheel, ripped to shreds, and the bare wheel dug a trench in the sand before the jeep came to a halt. She cut the engine and sat there for a few minutes until she could stop shaking. Then she began to study the map. According to it—and she hoped she’d read the compass right so far—there should be a road a couple of miles ahead that would take her to a white dot called Amboy. She took the map, flashlight, and canteen, checked her compass again and started walking.
By the time she’d reached the narrow black line of road, a chill wind had kicked up. Her legs ached fiercely, but she had no time to rest. She’d seen more helicopters flying around in the distance, and she expected a truck full of soldiers to come roaring across the desert after her at any moment. She walked north toward whatever Amboy was. Something slithered across the road in front of her, and she realized with a shudder that it must’ve been a sidewinder. She started watching her step and was surprised when headlights appeared on the flat horizon ahead. She started to wave her arms, then realized that it could very well be a jeep or a truck sent out after her from the base. She moved quickly off the road and crouched down in a gully about twenty feet away.
The headlights brightened, the vehicle took form. It was a white van, and as it passed, Gayle saw NBC NEWS printed on its side above the peacock logo. She stood up and shouted, “HEY!” but the van went on without even slowing, heading south.
They Thirst Page 60
