The 1000 Souls (Book 2): Generation Apocalypse

by Michael Andre McPherson

  Bobs was already shaking her head. “But if they flooded, how can the rippers—”

  Emile interrupted her. “I remember now. They drained them through a deeper tunnel, a newer one they were building for sewage. I remember the drawings in the newspaper. They had to see? You can’t run a building ’cause all the electrical, everything like that, is in the basement.”

  “Right.” Helen exhaled smoke. “And they were still using the tunnels for cables and stuff. It was a cable guy who first warned them it was flooding. Cost billions of dollars to fix. Lawsuits left and right. The city ended up taking them over and maintaining them until the end.”

  “Right,” said Jeff, who had one of Emile’s beers clasped in his hands like it was a hot drink that warmed his hands. “Now I get why the rippers always controlled the Loop. I thought it was just because they converted city hall first, but it was the center of their hidey-holes. No wonder you guys could never cleanse the north, even with all those basements sweeps. The rippers didn’t need the basements. They could just go back into the tunnels.

  Bobs noticed Tevy standing by the door. “What do you want?”

  Tevy delivered his report about the rippers turning back.

  “Good,” said Bobs. “That means Vlad doesn’t have unlimited troops, or he’d just throw them all at us now. The bad news is it means this Vlad is as smart as Vlad the Scourge.” She looked up at Tevy. “You can go. Good work.”

  Tevy hoped to get some sleep, but the littler kids in the Brat Pack needed his attention, his reassurance that all was safe and good, that their heroes were alive and defending them, despite the rumors they’d heard of thousands of rippers heading for St. Mike’s to bleed them all to death.

  *

  It was a relief when it was time for morning mass, and Tevy had never been so happy to sit for one of Bishop Alvarez’s sermons. A moment of respite after the battle. He tried to concentrate on the homily, but the exhaustion won.

  The bishop was well into his sermon when Elliot nudged Tevy awake.

  “You were snoring,” he whispered. “I think I know where his holiness is going with this, and if I’m right you should hear it.”

  Tevy shook his head to clear it and focused on Bishop Alvarez in his pulpit.

  “So while ‘Thou Shalt not Kill’ is a most holy commandment, it did not refer to rippers. Rippers are not human, so no one need fear going to eternal damnation for killing a ripper anymore than they would need fear it for killing a mad dog.”

  Tevy found himself nodding in agreement. Nothing new there.

  “The servants of rippers are also feeding the rippers with blood. This is a sin above all others. This is a sin punishable by death.” Bishop Alvarez looked slowly from left to right over the whole congregation to ensure he had their attention. “And most of those in the service of the rippers are waiting only for permission to become rippers themselves. They seek to turn their backs on the eternal life in heaven offered by Jesus Christ in favor of an extended mortal life down here. Mark this: our planet is not forever. Our sun is not forever. Only heaven is forever. The ripper promise of eternal life is a false one, and the human traitors who serve the rippers are servants of the devil. Hell will be their reward. It is not a sin to kill them, for they have abandoned their humanity in favor of the rippers. Whether they are rippers already or traitors only waiting for their turn to be rippers matters not. Once they agreed to serve the rippers, they are no longer human.”

  Alvarez drew a deep breath and again cast his glare slowly over the whole congregation to ensure they understood, a full ten seconds of pause.

  “When God passed down the commandment ‘Thou Shalt not Kill,’ he meant that you shall not kill one of your fellow humans. This was not referring to dumb animals like dogs, and it certainly wasn’t referring to humans who serve the devil. Killing a traitor is God’s work. No one need fear going to hell for this. In fact, they will be rewarded in heaven for preventing another human from absorbing the ripper evil, from turning into a monster.”

  Tevy’s sat up straight. He could shoot human traitors as if they were already rippers and he wouldn’t go to hell? He thought back to other sermons, trying to remember where exactly he had gotten the opposite idea, that you couldn’t shoot humans no matter what. Was it from his parents? He remembered his mom telling him that capital punishment was wrong. But he somehow thought Bishop Alvarez had always stressed not killing humans. Yet he couldn’t think of a moment when the bishop had clarified this one way or the other. Surely, he wasn’t changing church doctrine just for convenience? Tevy wanted this freedom, this knowledge that if he had shot any humans in the high school he wouldn’t go to hell, but he worried about how this fit so nicely with Bobs’ plan to nuke three cities full of humans serving the rippers. A suspicious man would think the bishop was laying the groundwork to excuse mass murder.

  The name Erics caught Tevy’s attention.

  “What’d he just say?” he whispered to Elliot.

  “He said don’t you dare join the Erics. They’re an evil cult and they’re going to hell. And he said we shouldn’t call them Ericsians because it makes them sound like Christians. He says just call them the Erics cult.”

  Tevy paid attention now.

  “They will lead you down a false path,” Alvarez was saying. “They too promise a false eternal life, again one that says you don’t leave the earth, but I tell you that your soul is your own. God granted unto each man one soul. He granted onto each woman one soul. Your soul is your own, and you are responsible for its redemption. No one, mark this.” He waved a finger at the congregation. “No one shares your soul. You will be tested in the next few weeks, because the evil that is Vlad must force us to work with these unbelievers. I have faith in all of you. Do not be tempted by this false cult, this false god of one thousand souls. Better yet, educate them in the miracle of Jesus Christ. Educate them about the Savior.”

  Tevy’s mind wandered until the name of Bertrand Allan caught his attention.

  “Know this,” said Alvarez, if anything in angrier than before, totally on a rant today. “Know that Bertrand, the Savior of Chicago and the Chicago Catholic Church, destroyed Vlad the Scourge. Bertrand’s selfless martyrdom gave us the moment we needed to rise up against the rippers. Cities like Los Angles and New York and Washington fell under their sway because no man rose up to lead the fight, to spread the word of God about the evil rippers.

  “The new Vlad we fight today, Vlad Who Bleeds as he calls himself, is not the same ripper, is not the same devil. He is not the anti-Christ. Vlad the Scourge was the anti-Christ and our beloved Bertrand cast him into the fire, even though it meant his own excruciating death. Word of miracles performed by Bertrand since his passing from our earthly torment have been reported to me. I believe that he may be a saint, and certainly he is worthy of beatification. Once Vlad Who Bleeds has been cast into hell, we will hold a festival on the anniversary of Bertrand’s martyrdom and begin the first holy steps to sainthood. If you experience any miracle that you can attribute to our beloved Bertrand, be sure to relate them to me so that they can be entered into the church record.”

  Tevy remembered the ripper in the woods, soon to be saint. His first instinct was to run to the bishop after mass and warn him that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, but he had promised Kayla he would keep it a secret.

  Kayla. What was it about her that attracted him? When he stopped and thought about it, she wasn’t really that old, so maybe it was because she was almost as old as Bobs that it seemed weird. Kayla was really quite attractive. He worried about her last night, had kept trying to get in front of her so that she wouldn’t be shot, but she led from the front. When she shouted, “go, go, go,” before charging into the Mart, she had thrilled him, inspired him, and made him want to know her.

  Bishop Alvarez finished his sermon and they knelt for the Eucharist, the ringing bells as he offered the host up to God helping to keep Tevy awake, but he found carnal thoughts polluted his mind a
nd distracted his attention—thoughts of his lips against Kayla’s, his hand around her back and sliding up under her shirt.

  He would have to stand soon. Why did this always happen in church, right under God’s eyes? He focused on the gold, on the paintings, on the stations of the cross. Mercifully, exhaustion helped, and when he stood to go for communion he no longer feared he would humiliate himself with a most unreligious bulge in his jeans. But he vowed to find Kayla right after mass to warn her about what the bishop had to say of her religion. He promised her no secrets, and he was desperate to see her even if he couldn’t touch her.

  Finding her turned out to be easy. The St. John’s people were housed in several blockhouses north of the church, but the core of Joyce’s Raiders, the people Tevy knew best, were in Emile’s blockhouse right across the street from the church. The building was a solid century-old three-story building, originally built for the church but granted to Emile by Alvarez. During the apocalypse, Emile bricked in the basement and ground-floor windows, except for gun slots, and he placed bars on the second floor windows. He and his friends also dug a well through the basement floor until they found water. Later, they dug a side tunnel into the basement of the church so that they could support one another when besieged by rippers. On the top floor of the blockhouse, in a front room facing the church, he found Joyce standing over a yellowed map on a table with Kayla at her side. Jeff relaxed on a couch and smoked while he listened.

  Joyce’s welcome was less than warm. “What do you want?”

  Tevy decided on the bald truth. “Just thought you guys might want to know that the bishop is promising to canonize Bertrand Allan.”

  “What?” Joyce’s expression was not one of confusion but disbelief.

  “They’re going to beatify him in November, and that’s the first step to becoming a saint. The bishop said a lot about the Ericsians too.” Tevy waited to see if they wanted to hear all this news, but for a moment no one said anything.

  Jeff stood and reached into a cooler, pulling out one of Emile’s bottles of beer, the label long since dissolved by the cold water. He popped it open with a bottle opener and handed it to Tevy. “Tell us everything.”

  Tevy sat on a wooden chair by the table and related the details of the sermon.

  “Bert’s to be a saint, and Alvarez practically declares a jihad against the Ericsians.” Jeff stood and walked over to the window to look across at the church. “Is he here?”

  Joyce shook her head. “I was over at his house, but he wasn’t there, and no sign that he was.”

  “What about the bunker?” asked Jeff.

  Joyce’s eyes went briefly to Tevy and back to Jeff with a subtle shake of her head. She wanted something kept secret from Tevy. He nearly protested, intending to point out that he had been forthright with them and kept their secrets, but the word bunker caught his attention. He kept his mouth shut and allowed Kayla to usher him out of the room and down the stairs.

  They stood in the morning light on the stairs of the blockhouse, the church still inspiring awe in Tevy as much because of what it had survived as because of its ornate exterior.

  “Thanks for coming to tell us,” said Kayla. “I know Joyce isn’t the warmest and all, but you do remind her of Bertrand Allan, and when I told her the Ericsians said you hosted a portion of the same soul, well, she seemed a little freaked out.”

  “No worries.” Tevy put down the crazy desire to embrace her and kiss her good morning. That would be totally inappropriate, since she had been his captain last night, not his friend or his lover. Besides, he stank from the running and really needed to get Elliot to pour a bucket of water over his head behind the church in the little wood cubicles they called showers, even though they had no plumbing.

  “So I guess I’ll see you around.” Kayla seemed just as uncomfortable with this tired small talk.

  “Yeah. I don’t know where I’ll be fighting tonight, but I’ll ask if it can be with you guys again. I’ve kind of, like, gotten used to all of you and all.” He covered how lame that was by putting up his fist for a knuckle-knock.

  Kayla’s brow furrowed in confusion for a moment before she broke into a smile and knocked knuckles with him. “Okay. Keep out of trouble, and I’ll see you on the line tonight.”

  But once she had gone back inside the blockhouse, Tevy changed course, starting out slow so as not to attract attention, but breaking into a run once he was past the cantonment gate.

  He knew every basement within ten miles of St. Mike’s, having searched all of them several times over the years for canned food and rippers. There was only one house with a “bunker.” It was risky, but Tevy intended to go a visit that house now, because if Joyce was right, that’s where he would find Bertrand Allan hiding from the sun.

  Tevy desperately wanted to meet this man, this ripper, that was supposed host a portion of the same soul as Tevy, if you believed the Ericsians. He also wanted to know why Bertrand Allan was still alive, if it really was him, and what he thought about his pending sainthood.

  Twenty-One - The Saint

  Nothing on the exterior of the house suggested there was anything special about it. It was fully detached, clapboard-sided, and its windows had survived, but Tevy knew that it had one totally weird feature: there was a concrete bunker hidden in the basement. It had a door like a bank vault, and it was hidden behind a fridge so that there was no chance of stumbling across it.

  Tevy and Elliot discovered it when Elliot leaned against the fridge one day a few years ago. When the fridge easily rolled to the side, both boys thought they might have found a secret store of food or guns, but they were disappointed: the gun racks were empty and only two couches took up space in the room. It stank of mold and mildew. They left the door open in hopes that it would dry up and they could use it as their own special hiding place if they got stuck too far away from St. Mike’s before dark some night, but they’d never needed it.

  Today, the door was closed, and someone had slid the fridge back into place.

  How do you knock on a ripper’s door and live? Tevy drew his shotgun and debated going back to find Elliot, but somehow he wanted to meet this ripper alone. Would it be like meeting himself?

  Tevy set the candle down on the counter of a small wet bar. There were other candles there from his last visit, but fewer than he expected. Had Bertrand Allan borrowed some? Was he reading a paperback in the bunker now? The basement windows were bricked in, so a ripper could have sat in the small seventies-era armchair out here and been safe from the sun. But the bunker provided protection from hunters like Tevy.

  He pushed the fridge aside. Was that movement inside the bunker? Had he awakened a sleeping ripper? Tevy rapped with his knuckles on the vault door, heavy metal that bespoke of amateur welding. There was no handle or latch on the outside. Tevy remembered a simple iron rod that slid in place on the inside to seal the door. It was designed to lock people out.

  Nothing happened, so he pushed on it, but it didn’t budge. Someone was in there all right. His heart beat faster, and again he considered running back to the church to get Elliot, but his curiosity wouldn’t allow him to leave.

  He used the barrel of his shotgun this time, tapping the door with more confidence. This time he definitely heard movement, a shuffle, the sound carrying through a narrow plastic pipe above the door, possibly installed there for ventilation.

  “Who’s there?”

  “A friend of Emile’s. You saved me way back at the beginning, and Emile and Helen raised me. My name’s Tevy.”

  Silence. Finally, “I don’t remember you. I saved lots of people. Anyone could say that just to get me to open the door and shoot.”

  “I don’t want to kill you. I saw you in the woods that night, talking to Joyce. I’ve kept it a secret from Bobs that you’re still alive.”

  The grate of metal on metal warned Tevy that the bolt was sliding back and the door was about to open. He stepped away even though he knew the door swung inwards, wanting spa
ce between himself and the ripper. He kept his shotgun aimed and tried to convince himself that this was not a very bad idea.

  The door swung in and the ripper, the man, Bertrand Allan, stepped out into the room, his own shotgun aimed at Tevy. He was taller than Tevy remembered, and the blue jeans and t-shirt were new and fresh, the shirt proclaiming CHICAGO IS GREEN in bold letters over a marijuana leaf—a shirt more for hippy-chick tourists. Allan must have stopped by a store that hadn’t been looted or burned. His face held the gaunt look of a starved ripper, and his eyes reflected the candlelight with the glitter of very dilated pupils. His facial hair clung thinly to his chin, not so much shaved as if it had just stopped growing, as if the hair follicles were starving or dead. It occurred to Tevy that he’d never seen a ripper with facial hair and that a lot of them were thin on top or even bald, although Allan still had dark hair. Did the parasites starve facial hair?

  “Who are you?” asked Allan.

  “I’m Tevy Wexler. You rescued me on September fourteenth of the year of the apocalypse. I’ve been in the orphanage at St. Mike’s since then.”

  “You’re too old to be an orphan.” Did Allan smile when he said that?

  “I just haven’t been kicked out yet, because the little kids like to know I’m there. I mean me and Elliot and Amanda. It helps them sleep, knowing we’re there with guns to protect them.”

  “Same gun as mine. Why did you choose that Winchester?”

  “Emile picked it out for me. Said you always used the 1200 real good and I should too.”

  Allan moved to his left, circling around until he could back up and sit down on the couch, placing his own shotgun across his knees. “How is Emile?”

  “Alive. Good.” Tevy sat in the little armchair. “But we’ve got some troubles. There’s this ripper named Vlad who says he was Vlad the Scourge, but now he’s renamed himself Vlad Who Bleeds. He says he survived the Battle of the Mountain.”