Shudder

by V. J. Chambers

  Luckily, I’d had some practice with guns like that. When we were fighting Kieran and Eve and living in the old metro tunnels in D.C., we’d stockpiled weapons, stolen them from wherever we could, used anything we could get our hands on.

  That thing looked like a Colt M4.

  He raised it the second he saw me.

  I hit the floor, face-first, arms-out, grabbing for his ankles.

  He tried to correct, to move the gun, but he was slow. He’d spent too much time letting it do all the work for him.

  I seized his feet and let the momentum of my slide take him down.

  He fell on his back, firing rounds into the ceiling.

  I clawed my way up his body, thrusting an elbow into his crotch.

  He screamed, his hold on the gun loosened, and I was holding it.

  I scrambled to my feet, training the gun on him. I only hesitated a second before spraying him with bullets.

  Sure, he’d been down for the count, but I needed longer than the count.

  Blood spurted, and the man stopped moving. I was pretty sure I’d killed him. But when I was in fight mode, I refused to let myself think about that. I had to strip the humanity away from people and think of them as moving obstacles—nothing more. Sentiment would get me killed.

  I headed up the wing, nose of the gun going first.

  I could hear more gunfire coming from elsewhere. Yells and screams. They sounded close.

  When I opened the door to the main room, I realized why they sounded that way.

  Jason was in the middle of the room, standing on a table. His gaze twitched over everything, and he held one of the guns, like me. There were bodies all over the floor, men in black. They were all dead. A man in a white lab coat cowered in one corner. In another, Jude, Boone, Emma, and Grace were huddled together, their eyes wide.

  “Hey sweetie,” I said. “I thought we were taking hostages.”

  “Only need one,” he said, leaping off the table and heading for the guy in the lab coat. “You all right?” he threw over his shoulder.

  “Fine,” I said, swinging in a circle, covering all the doorways in case anyone else came through. I had to admit, this felt good. The heft of cold metal in my hands was like coming home. And I got a charge from the urgency, the hint of danger. It was a rush. I grinned.

  Jason was gesturing at the lab coat man with the nose of his gun. “Get up.”

  The man didn’t move.

  Jason looked up at the camera. “I’m going to kill them all. You better let us out of here.”

  But there was no response from above, not even the rush of gas. Maybe they didn’t want to gas the people they had down here.

  “Move, or I shoot you,” said Jason to the man.

  “Well, if you really have to,” the man cringed.

  What? What kind of answer was that?

  Movement.

  I whirled to see the woman from my room coming out of my wing. Her nose looked surprisingly good for having been snapped five minutes ago. I pointed my weapon. “Stop right there.”

  She didn’t stop. Well, what was I going to do? I opened fire.

  The shots burst in a line across her belly, red exploding through her white coat. She crumpled and fell.

  I turned back to Jason, who was hauling the man in the lab coat to his feet. “This is not a joke, you idiot. You get us out of this place, or I blow your head off.”

  The man had shut his eyes. “Stop talking about it and do it!”

  Jason and I exchanged a confused glance. These guys were willing to die to keep us in here?

  Then one of the men on the ground moved.

  Shit. I pivoted, squeezing the trigger and stopping him where he lay. I guessed he wasn’t actually dead. Which was weird, because there was blood on his forehead, like he’d been shot between the eyes—

  He wasn’t the only one moving. They were all moving.

  I aimed and sprayed, trying to hit all of them.

  But we hadn’t taken all their guns. There hadn’t been time. Maybe if the others had been helping us, we could have subdued them.

  But between Jason and me, we weren’t fast enough.

  I felt the piercing rip of several bullets in my chest.

  God. I thought head-butting that woman had hurt? This was about a hundred times worse.

  I stumbled, losing my grip on the gun.

  More bullets tore into me, sharp points of agonizing pain. I couldn’t stand anymore.

  I fell.

  I watched through a haze of shock and pain as the men shot Jason. He went sprawling on the floor. The men were all on their feet. One of them scooped up the gun I’d been holding. Another picked up Jason’s. None of them had been dead?

  The woman from my room stood up too. “Do we have the blood?” She held up a bag full of red liquid. My blood?

  “Most of it,” said the man in the lab coat.

  Others in lab coats came out of the wings, each with their blood bags.

  “Let’s go,” said the woman.

  The whole group of them ran out of the room. I heard the sound of a door creaking open, the whir of an elevator. We were alone down here again. I was bleeding. Everything hurt. And we were still trapped.

  What had happened?

  Jude rushed to me, kneeling down on the ground next to me. “Jesus, Zaza.”

  “It’s okay,” I mumbled. “I know I’m going to be dead for a few minutes. I’ll heal.”

  He shook his head. “No, I don’t think you will.” He pointed at Boone. “Bring me one of the chairs.”

  Boone didn’t move. “Who—Who are you guys?”

  “The chair,” said Jude.

  Boone lurched away from the corner. He picked up one of the chairs. Almost all of them had been overturned in the scuffle. Slowly, he brought it over to Jude.

  I felt woozy. The room was swimming. “Why didn’t they die?” I said.

  Jude turned the chair over, yanking on a plastic tip on one of its feet. It came off with a popping noise. “I couldn’t figure it out at first. It made sense for Jason to be here, for him to be like me. We’re brothers. But it didn’t make any sense for you to be here.”

  What was he talking about? “Those men. Jason must have shot them in the head.” It was his signature shot, after all. “Why did they get back up?”

  “Don’t talk yet.” Jude put his arm against the sharp edge of metal he’d uncovered. He slashed his arm downward.

  “What are you doing?” said Boone.

  “I’m saving her life,” said Jude. His arm was bleeding.

  Jason stirred across the room. He stood up. “What the hell happened?”

  Jude brought his bleeding arm up to my mouth. “You have to drink.”

  “What?” I said. He’d been reading that vampire crap too long. He was going insane. “I’m not drinking your blood.”

  Jason was next to us. “Jude? What the hell?”

  Jude looked at him. “She woke up from the coma after someone stuck her with a needle that had your blood in it. Your blood healed her.” He shoved his bloody arm against my lips.

  Some of his blood got into my mouth. I sealed my lips against it. It tasted salty, like sweat. And foreign. And disgusting.

  “Open your mouth, Azazel,” said Jude.

  I shook my head.

  “My blood healed her?” said Jason. “What are you going on about?”

  “She’s dying!” said Jude.

  “She’ll heal,” said Jason, but he didn’t sound sure.

  “Then why did her scar come back? Why did it take so much longer for her to recover from dehydration than you did?”

  Jude’s blood was working its way into me, and I could feel it somehow. I felt more alert. Better. And things didn’t hurt so much. Without making a conscious decision, I opened my mouth.

  Blood poured between my lips. It still tasted horrible, but the gush of it seemed to go to work on my body immediately, I could feel my wounds healing themselves, a burst of energy and life
shooting into me. I grasped his arm and pulled it closer, greedily lapping up his blood.

  Jude winced. “Look. Her scar. It’s fading.”

  Jason pulled back, white-faced. “Shit.”

  I was swimming in a sensation of absolute euphoria. The blood was making me feel utterly amazing. I felt invincible. All the pain in my body had disappeared. There was nothing but pleasure. I wanted more.

  Jude tried to pull his arm back. “I think that’s enough.”

  No. I wouldn’t let go of him. The blood was too good.

  Jude wrenched his hand away from me.

  I wanted it back. I sat up, reaching for him.

  Jason got in between me and Jude. “Baby?”

  I tried to focus on Jason. “More.”

  Boone knelt down next to us. “Okay, excuse me, but what is going on here?”

  Jude eyed the cameras. “I guess it doesn’t matter if they know what I know.” He took a deep breath. “They locked us up here because they want our blood. We’re Nephilim, and they’re vampires. Our blood makes them live forever.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Boone paced. “So what you’re saying is that we’re like some kind of ancient gods or angels or something and that we have special blood?”

  “No,” said Jude, sprawled on the floor of the main room. “I’m saying we’re the offspring of gods or angels or something. I don’t exactly know how it works.” He looked at Emma, Boone, and Grace. “Do any of you have siblings?”

  “I have a half-brother,” said Grace.

  Boone shook his head. “No siblings. But I did have this theory that maybe our healing abilities were hereditary. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “This isn’t good,” said Emma. “We’re causing them too much trouble. They’re going to hurt us.”

  “Emma, it’s okay,” said Jude.

  “No, it’s not,” said Emma. She stared up at the cameras, worried.

  “Maybe they aren’t even paying attention to us,” said Jude. “They might be so freaked out about our escape attempt that watching us isn’t high on the agenda.”

  “What does having siblings have to do with anything?” said Jason.

  “Well,” said Jude, “I think that these gods or angels or beings... whatever they were, I think that a long time ago, they had half-human offspring. The offspring carried their blood, which I think is the basis for Greek myths like ambrosia. It’s a liquid that confers immortality. I think that drinking the blood of the beings made you immortal just like them. But I think over time the blood was diluted. So lots of people probably carry a little bit of it. But it’s not enough to make them truly able to keep from dying.”

  “Then why do we have it?” said Grace.

  “I’m thinking it might be like a recessive gene,” said Jude. “Like red hair. For a person to have red hair, both of his parents have to have the recessive red hair gene. If one person has it, and the other person doesn’t, their kids won’t have red hair. So I think all of us had parents who had recessive Nephilim genes.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” said Jason. He was sitting on one of the tables. “So these people that captured us spend all their time looking for strange cases in which people heal unnaturally, and then they swoop in and capture those people.”

  “I think so,” said Jude.

  “For your blood,” I said. I was completely healed, and I felt better than I had in years. My body was strong and bursting with life. “I can see why.”

  “It wears off,” said Jude. “That’s why Azazel’s scar reappeared. My theory is that they need more once a month or so. That’s why they draw blood from us that often. As long as they get their monthly supply of blood, they’re just like us. They can’t be killed, and they heal quickly.”

  “Which is why they all got up when we thought they were dead,” said Jason.

  “Wow,” I said. “So to get out of here, we have to fight people who can’t die.”

  Jude nodded. “But at least we’re evenly matched.”

  “We’re not evenly matched,” said Jason. “They’ve got us down here. They’ve got the gas in the ceiling. They can do whatever they want.”

  “Why are we idiots?” said Boone suddenly.

  We all looked at him.

  “Speak for yourself,” said Jason.

  “No,” said Boone. “We’ve been wasting all this time busting cameras and shooting people. But as you just said, their biggest advantage is their ability to knock us out. Instead of damaging cameras, we should have been damaging the gas nozzles.”

  “He’s right,” I said. “If they can’t gas us—”

  “They can still shoot us,” said Jason.

  “But we can shoot them too,” I said.

  “Well, if we’re going to do anything,” said Jude, “we’re going to need to do it fast. Because I’m guessing it’s not going to take them very long to figure out that Azazel isn’t a Nephilim. And if she doesn’t have the blood, she’s no good to them.”

  Jason gestured at the cameras. “Thanks for spelling that out for them. If they hadn’t figured it all out yet, they sure have now.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “If they’re watching, I’m pretty sure they figured it out when Jude was feeding me his blood.”

  “The gas?” said Boone.

  Jason stood up on the table. He began to examine the ceiling. “I can’t see how it opens. We might be able to break the nozzles off, but that might mean the gas just pours down here. The nozzles are probably the only thing holding it back.”

  Boone climbed up next to him. “It’s got to be controlled mechanically or something. They type some commands on a computer and the nozzles all open.” He grimaced. “The shit of it is, if I wasn’t locked down here, I could probably have hacked in and figured out how to do it. I used to be pretty good with computers.”

  “Say we disable the gas nozzles,” said Jude. “We’re still stuck down here. It doesn’t help anything.”

  “It does,” said Jason. “Because if they can’t knock us out, we can fight them.”

  “Yeah, well, you just tried that, and it didn’t work very well,” said Jude. He turned to me. “We’ve got to worry about Azazel.”

  I shrugged. “What can they do to me? I’ve got the blood now. I’m just like you guys.”

  “You saw the video,” said Boone. “I think there are ways to kill us. If we get blown up, or if they cut off our heads.”

  “They’ll pump gas in here,” said Jude, “and when we wake up, Azazel will be gone. They’ll have killed her.”

  Jason jumped down off the table. “No.”

  “Well, they don’t need her for anything, do they?” said Jude. “And if my theory about the recessive genes is right, she’s not even good for breeding. She might not have the gene.”

  “Don’t talk about us like that,” said Grace. “Like we’re... animals or something.”

  “To them, we are,” said Jude. “We’re walking blood bags, okay? We’re a means to an end. They don’t care about us.”

  “And if we’re too much trouble, they get rid of us,” said Boone, “like that video shows.”

  I gulped. Jude was right. If they gassed me, then I’d be helpless. They could kill me, take away my body, and no one down here would even know what happened to me.

  “All the more reason to get the gas off,” said Jason. “If they can’t gas us, then we can protect Azazel.”

  “And again,” said Boone, “we’re back to trying to figure out how in the heck we’re going to do that.” He was still on the table. “It’s so simple, but yet so complicated.”

  When the gas started pouring into his face after that, it was like they were mocking us.

  Jason hurled something at a camera. “Fuck you, assholes!” he screamed.

  But it wasn’t any use. The gas downed us all, pulling us into unconsciousness. I tried to struggle. After all, they were probably doing this to kill me. But I couldn’t. It was too strong. I was too sleepy. I was out in se
conds.

  * * *

  When I woke up, I was in a place I’d never been before. It was a tiny room. There was a cot in it, like the cots in the place I had been. There was also a similar toilet and sink. There was no shower, and there was no carpeting on the floor. It was concrete, painted gray just like everything else had been. This room just fit the bed, with only a foot on the other side before the wall. There was a door. It was metal. It was gray. It was locked.

  There was a camera in the corner. Of course. There was always a camera.

  I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know why I was there. Shouldn’t they have killed me, like Jude predicted?

  Why hadn’t they killed me?

  I puzzled over it for hours. I didn’t come to a definitive conclusion. Maybe they were waiting for Jude’s blood to get out of my system, so that they could kill me more easily, without having to blow me up. Maybe they wanted me alive for some reason. Maybe they thought there was a chance that I was pregnant, since I’d had sex with Jason that night. Or maybe they knew that I was from a blood test. Maybe they wanted to see if my baby was a Nephilim like the others.

  I hoped not. I wanted children. Sometimes I desperately wanted them. But I’d never been in a situation where having babies made any kind of sense. I’d never tried.

  The thought of having a child and having it be forced to live in this horrible place crushed me. I didn’t want that. No part of me wanted that.

  After a while, I couldn’t think about it anymore.

  The lights went off eventually. I lay down on my cot and slept. I woke up when the lights came back on. I guessed that meant it was morning. There was a tray of food next to the door. I hadn’t heard the door open. When I picked up the tray, I realized that there was a tiny flap under the door, a slit just big enough to slide a tray of food through.

  The door hadn’t opened after all.

  I went through the cycle over and over again. Four times, I thought. The lights went off. I slept. I ate. They only fed me once a day, not three.

  Why were they bothering to feed me? Why were they keeping me alive? Why hadn’t they killed me?