“Exactly,” Kevin says.
“How much blood do we have left?” Rachel asks the room.
“Alan took about half of it out of storage last night, right before he—” Bonnie says softly. “We probably have thirty units.”
“And not to be morbid,” Kevin says, “But we’re all carrying quite a lot of that O-negative stuff in our own bodies.”
The other twin, Chloe, calls out, “We’re like weapons. Our bodies are weapons.”
All the survivors pause to consider that.
“She’s right,” Kevin says.
The girl says, “Fuck yeah,” and Kevin manages another laugh.
“If this thing works,” he says, “I say we start drawing blood from everyone.”
“Yep.” Rachel’s voice sounds more confident now. “Okay, let’s do it.”
The group springs into motion, Rachel and Kevin taking charge of the operation. Rachel instructs the trio of young women to gather blankets and sheets, perhaps pillows, and for a moment Michael is baffled as to the reason, but then he understands that the cloth will help keep the light, that strange radiation, from affecting the survivors’ exposed flesh. Bonnie is sent to collect a unit of O-negative plasma and two high-capacity syringes. She knows exactly where to go, and though she begins her journey with a plaintive sigh, she takes to the mission and is out of the room in a flash. The remaining survivors return to their posts at the hospital entrances, helping to clean up and keep an eye on things.
In the middle of the commotion, Joel reenters the room and finds Rachel buried in her father’s chest.
“I got Buck on the horn, anyway.”
“Yeah?”
“Told him to get over to the Harmony hospital and secure that blood.”
“What about the Thompson brothers?”
“No answer.” And then, loudly enough to reverberate down the hallways, “Fuck!” After a moment, Joel gives Rachel a look. “Those dudes are survivors. More so than the rest of us.”
Rachel removes herself from Michael’s embrace and moves toward Joel. She grasps his forearm with both hands.
“Joel, I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t—”
“Now, no—” He tries to shrug her off, but she holds fast.
“—I was in shock, all right? I still am, probably. I couldn’t—process. So I fucked up. But I’m trying to make it right.”
Joel visibly softens and manages to remove her hands. Michael knows that there’s still a lot beneath this cop’s surface, and it’s directed at Rachel.
Kevin walks up. “We’re ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“We’re gonna test that motherfucker upstairs, inject it, see what happens.”
Joel looks from Rachel to Michael to Kevin.
“To wake him up?”
“To bring him back to life,” Rachel says.
“Now hold on, just wait a goddamn second.” He raises one hand authoritatively. “The man in that room is a felon.”
Rachel looks stunned. “He’s a human being.”
Joel steels himself. “Not what I was getting at—but Jesus, couldn’t you have a picked a better specimen for your test?”
“Hey, we might be really lucky that there was a prisoner here at all.”
He looks at her for a long moment. “Point taken, but shit.”
“All right, then, let’s go.”
Chapter 6
In moments, the group has reassembled, and everything is ready. The loose team walks up the stairs purposefully, quiet as they tread the barren hallway and approach the closed door. Arriving, they exchange glances. Rachel and Bonnie have blood-filled syringes at the ready—they look huge, perhaps 100 milliliters. Kevin and Michael are holding big wads of starchy hospital blankets in front of them as if they’re looking to capture some kind of wild game, and Joel is to the side. The cop now holds a tactical shotgun, loaded, aimed low and tight. The three girls remain behind them, ready to jump in if they’re needed.
There are only subtle movements coming from inside the room, sounding like halfhearted attempts to escape the handcuffs.
“Ready to get this done?” Kevin says.
Nods all around.
He takes hold of the handle and swings the door in.
The inverted corpse whips its head around to face them, hissing an unearthly gasp. On top of the odors of human waste and filth, Michael smells something like dry rot coming from the open mouth—the smell of poor teeth, poor health. The odors have filled the room. The survivors around him frown with disgust.
“That hand is close to coming off.” Joel edges his way in, his weapon trained on the thing’s head. “Get on in here.”
Kevin leads Michael in, cautiously, and they step around the corpse, surrounding it but not getting too close. It watches them, one at a time, back and forth, its eyes wide and red and dry. Michael takes a look at the hand, and yes, it’s connected to the arm by mere tendons now, the flesh hanging in strands, veins dripping sluggishly. There’s a Rorschach pattern of swiped blood beneath the corpse, and its skin is pale, almost gray. He wonders if, given time, the thing might just expire from blood loss.
But the blood dripping from the nearly severed hand is more akin to thickened oil than blood.
“Remember—don’t let that head get near you,” Bonnie reminds them for the third time. “We should probably get some vests from an x-ray room.” Her voice is filled with uncertainty, and Michael knows she’s directing her words at him.
“I got it.”
Just as he speaks, the corpse furiously thrashes its whole body. There’s a sickeningly loud snap as the final tendon is severed and the dismembered hand falls to the floor. The thing is abruptly a whirling dervish of chaotic anger, screaming through its ragged throat, its bent-backward limbs swiping at the floor, its arm stump painting broad red strokes on the tiles, and it’s rushing toward them, hobbled but quick. The entire group rears back, and Joel brings up the shotgun as the corpse prepares to lunge.
“No! Don’t kill it!” Kevin shouts at the cop. “We got it! We need it!”
Joel swears loudly, swinging his weapon up, and Kevin leaps at the thing that’s scrabbling across the floor.
“Kevin!” shouts Bonnie.
Michael, against all sound judgment, rushes forward to help the large man, pressing the cloth into whatever gap he can find, trying to secure flailing limbs and use his weight to collapse the body onto the floor. The corpse is all elbows and knees beneath him, battering him, and squawking at him in horrid barks. Michael gets within a foot of the thing’s peeled-wide eyes, sees immense anger or fear there, and he arches away from it as it attempts to thrust its head at him like a stinger.
At that moment, Michael understands that the thing knows it can inflict harm with whatever is inside it. There’s an intelligence behind that awful face.
And something else.
Michael freezes for an instant as the thing glares at him, screeches at him. The eyes, those terrible eyes—they burn into him. He stares into them, glimpses something behind them—
“Daddy!” Rachel screams.
Her voice knocks him from his momentary paralysis, and then Kevin’s weight finally brings the thing to the floor. Michael uses all his strength to help him pin the body down, his skin protected by hospital cloth.
“We got it! We got it! Do it!” Kevin is yelling.
But Rachel is already pressing into the gap, expertly wielding her fat syringe. She thrusts it forward, toward the bulging carotid artery at the strained neck. But the thing thrashes its head toward Rachel and the tip of the needle accidentally plunges deep into its cheek, beneath the enraged eye. Rachel flinches more than the corpse does.
She cries out, repulsed, and yanks the syringe from the flesh. “You’ve got to secure the head! Use the blankets.”
Bonnie dives into the fray and blinds the thing with the sheets from the bed, leaving the neck free. Rachel inserts the needle and begins to push the O-negative blood into the vein.
>
The reaction is instantaneous. The body goes rigid, and the wild flailing energy becomes more of a nervous thrum beneath Michael’s hands.
“Okay!” Rachel calls. “Done!”
The survivors scramble backward as one, leaving the corpse straining and vibrating on the floor. It’s coughing and sputtering, and in the weak light, the red glow inside the head is sparking and strobing.
“What in the hell?” Michael gasps, backing into the wall next to the door. He sees that Rachel has emptied only about a quarter of the large syringe into the corpse’s neck.
The corpse is no longer paying them any attention; instead, it is consumed by what is happening inside itself. The glow finally pops out, audibly—sounding like an electric crack—and the body slumps to the floor, lifeless.
Blood is still pumping weakly from the wrist stump.
“We need to get a tourniquet on that,” Rachel says, pointing. “He won’t be any use to us if he bleeds out.”
Behind Michael comes the sound of tearing fabric. Kevin is ripping a thin length of cloth from a blue bedsheet.
“I don’t think he can hurt you now,” she says. “Go ahead.”
Kevin visibly swallows, staring at the bald man. After a moment of trembling indecision, he quickly wraps the stump with the cloth and yanks it tight, tying a messy knot while avoiding the blood still flowing from the devastated wrist.
“I think he’s lost a lot of blood, can you give him the rest of the syringe?”
“I doubt this is how a transfusion works, but what the hell, right?” Rachel reinserts the syringe and gives it steady pressure, emptying the contents.
“Check for a pulse!” Bonnie calls from behind them.
Kevin shoves his finger beneath the man’s jaw. He concentrates, searching.
“I don’t—wait!” The big man tentatively touches the man’s chest, then dives in full force, beginning a frantic series of chest compressions, counting audibly with the effort. Sweat is standing out on his head in big droplets, some of them raining down on the prisoner. Abruptly he drops and fastens his mouth to that of the unconscious man, blowing air inside his lungs. He returns to the chest compressions.
In moments, the bald man coughs. Breathing has resumed. But the eyes remain closed.
“You have to be kidding,” Joel whispers. “He’s alive?”
“There’s a pulse?” one of the girls cries from the hall.
“I don’t fucking believe it,” Kevin breathes.
Both of the man’s shoulders appear nearly dislocated, but perhaps not; the body seems to be subtly deflating and attaining at least a measure of its former shape and contour. There don’t appear to be any badly broken bones, but the body still looks to have been through the ringer.
As if reading his mind, Kevin says, “Let’s put those arms back while he’s out. Mike, hold him down at the shoulder, will ya?”
Michael moves quickly to put his weight against the bald man’s upper body, and Kevin wastes no time popping both arms back into place. Even so, the body is in terrible shape, and Michael feels a wave of dark pity wash over him. He stands and regards the body silently. It’s a mess. All of the limbs, all the fingers and toes, remain wrenched out of shape, some subtly, some unmistakably. He certainly wouldn’t want to wake to such an existence. If this man were awake right now, he would be screaming his head off.
Rachel bends down carefully toward the man’s head and, using a blanket, manipulates the jaw so that she can see inside the mouth.
“It’s gone. There’s nothing in there.” She tosses the blanket aside and places her hand above his mouth. “And he’s breathing. This guy’s alive.”
Just as she says it, the man lets out a ragged snore, and repeats it, as if he’s having trouble breathing in unconsciousness.
“Let’s get him up on the bed,” Bonnie says, coming forward. She takes charge effortlessly, although she can’t hide the grimace on her mouth.
Michael grasps the left side of the body, opposite Rachel. They share a glance as Bonnie positions herself next to Michael, directing Kevin next to Rachel with a gesture. The four of them lift the body up and back to the bed, all of them straining under the body’s crumpled deadweight. They settle the body to the half-stripped mattress with something approaching dignity, and Joel immediately uses his own cuffs to attach the man’s good hand to the metal bar at the bedside.
Rachel gives him a look. “Fair enough.”
All of the gathered survivors are crowded around the body, waiting for something to happen. But nothing does, save for the throaty suspiration of the prisoner and the expectant breathing of the group.
“Imagine if we’d done this to one of those outside, with all that wood and sap and splinters and shit all down their throat,” Kevin says, shaking his shaggy head. “Even if this dude survives, I think it’ll be a very different thing to turn the ones outside. Hell, I can’t imagine most of those fuckers wanting to live after this shit. Not to mention that there’s hundreds of thousands of them out there, and we’re dealing with just one here. You know, a controlled situation.”
Bonnie touches the man’s forehead. “Maybe a fever there.”
They all stand there expectantly for long minutes, listening to him breathe.
Michael notices Rachel glancing around impatiently, and he’s reminded of the teen daughter that he’s seen all too much of over the past few years—that glare, that thrust-forward jaw. Before he can give it too much thought, Rachel is shoving at the man on the table.
“Wake up!”
Bonnie grabs at Rachel’s arms. “Rachel! What are you doing?”
But the man is abruptly convulsing and coughing. Everyone takes a step back, wary. The man is writhing atop the bed, trying to find his voice. He opens his eyes and stares straight up, blearily. He blinks exaggeratedly, tries to lift his hands up to rub at them, but he finds one hand secured and the other ending at a stump. He can’t seem to process either fact, though, and the hands fall back. Finally he finds his voice, hoarse and loud. A stream of sound issues from his mouth, just a groan at first, and then attempts at words.
“Nnnnnn—nn—hnnnn—hunnnnnn—”
There’s an expression of suffering across his features, and Bonnie appears desperate about it.
“Oh my God,” she cries. “Such pain!”
“Huuunnnnnnnn—”
“Why didn’t we bring morphine?”
The man’s sounds dissolve into some kind of squeal, foamy saliva rimming his lips. “—rrreeeeeee—”
Now Bonnie is hustling from the room, pushing past Michael and between the twins. The man on the bed inhales a choking breath, then starts again, bellowing sound, his mouth working. He’s trying to say something.
“Neeeee—”
He twists across the bed, helplessly. With each movement, it’s clear that the hyper-extensions and sprains from before are now excruciating. Michael hears a muffled grinding sound coming from the man’s hips, and he instinctively reaches forward to brace the man against the bed to stop him from flailing.
“Help me!” Michael calls. “Keep him still.”
The man reacts only vaguely to the hands pressing against him.
“Uh—uhhh—uhhhh—neeeeeeeeeeeeee—”
“Needs?” one of the twins shouts, translating. “Needs what? What does he need?”
Joel is glaring over everything. “I can put him out of his misery right now.” He’s holding his shotgun at the ready.
“No!” Rachel calls, but there are tears in her eyes. “We need him! We have to learn! We have to see if we can bring him back.”
The man’s throat bulges with veins, and his face is red with struggle, and just as he’s about to let go with another burst of shouts, he goes mercifully unconscious, deflating to the table. Simultaneously, blood bursts from both nostrils in a fine mist and then in thin streams, down his cheeks to the sheets.
“I got it on me, I got it on me,” Kevin is saying, stumbling back and away. With a big for
earm splattered with fresh blood, he’s reaching for one of the white towels. “Jesus!”
Bonnie arrives with morphine, out of breath, and stares down at the body.
“What happened?”
Numb, Joel says, “Passed out.” He’s got his weapon aimed at the ceiling now. He won’t need it anymore.
The group is left considering one another, and considering what has happened on a lone bed in the middle of this decimated hospital.
Chapter 7
Michael wakes gummy-eyed to the sight of a tray table next to him. There’s a packaged turkey sandwich, a banana, and two bottles of water there. He feels an almost violent urge to grab all these items and clutch them to his body. Instead, he reaches over carefully and takes one of the bottles. He twists it open and drinks, gulping down the water.
He is weak with hunger and still terribly thirsty.
And here in the deep dark, his first real waking thought is—
Susanna.
He’s still in this godforsaken hospital, in a state of horrified confusion, the world crumbling around him, and he still has no idea what happened to his wife. He feels a lump of emotion in his throat, knowing that he’s back to square one in this awful new reality, having fallen unconscious again, alone once more in the dark. He needs to find her; he needs to know what happened to her.
“You passed out again,” Bonnie says from the doorway.
Michael jerks, startled.
“Sorry.” She gestures toward the water. “I knew you’d be thirsty. You’re probably dehydrated. I should have realized that earlier. I’m sorry. Take it easy, though. The body can reject it if you go too fast.”
Michael brings the bottle down, savors what’s inside him. It’s like a blast of healing balm. He takes hold of the sandwich and forces himself to slowly unwrap it.
“They’re a little stale, but we’re not exactly in the business of making fresh sandwiches these days. We found them in the cafeteria. At least they’re not spoiled yet. That’s almost the last of the water, but we’ll get more at Safeway.”
He takes the first bite of the sandwich, feels an almost comical surge of energy come from it, then takes another. He nods his appreciation.
Blood Trilogy (Book 2): Draw Blood Page 6
