But Kayla didn’t understand. They could all make a run for it. They could carry Joyce.
*
But Tevy did understand.
As he knelt in front of Joyce, he remembered his father shoving him deep into the closet, his mother blowing him a kiss while she was loading Granddad’s old .38 Smith and Wesson. He retrieved that gun from the burnt wreckage of the home of his childhood a month after their deaths. He hugged the burnt skull of his mother for an afternoon until Elliot found him and helped him bury the bones of Tevy’s loving parents in the back yard.
“You’re a good mother,” Tevy said to Joyce.
She understood, and he helped her take hold of her Uzi.
“We can’t leave her!” yelled Kayla.
She didn’t get it, and Tevy only had a moment to educate her. “This is what loving parents do!” Tevy discovered that he wept even as he shouted at Kayla. “This is what they do. They die for their children. They die.”
He grabbed Kayla by the arm and pulled her to a standing position. Elliot and Amanda stood too. They got it.
Allan again sat holding Joyce’s hand. He looked up to Kayla. “I’ll stay with her. Tevy’s right. It’s your only chance of sneaking across the river. You have to go before they try again.”
Jeff still sat behind Joyce, cradling her in his arms. He looked up at Tevy and Kayla. “Say hi to Barry for me. I can’t go anywhere without these two, anyway. I’m staying. Go and toast me when you get to St. John’s. Check the footlocker in my room. There’s a half full bottle of single malt scotch: Balvenie Doublewood. Twelve years old. It’s really good.”
He slapped a fresh mag into his FN, that science-fiction looking rifle.
Tevy had to pull Kayla, but she came with him and they left the Trinity to their fate.
Thirty-Two - Escape to St. John’s
Tevy hoped that leaving the three to die would be the last tragedy of the night, but he got through the Sun-Times building and over the loading docks to discover that Helen had been left alone at the edge of the river, holding Margaret, who wept quietly, because she knew her mother wasn’t with them. She also apparently knew that silence was essential. It reminded Tevy of his last days with his parents, when he had learned that silence meant life.
The Red Shirts on the bridge hadn’t heard people splashing across the river because the gunfire from the Mart riveted their attention. Helen had been left behind in the panic. A strong crescent moon was on the wax, but that wasn’t much light to see by, and Tevy’s eyes had yet to adjust to the dark after all the muzzle flashes and explosions.
“Let’s go,” whispered Tevy.
Helen nodded and stepped into the river with the little girl. The water seemed colder to Tevy than before, and it stung all the hurts that he didn’t even know he had earned. It wasn’t until half way across that a new disaster made itself evident. Helen suddenly shoved Margaret at him, the girl bravely not screaming in the panic that she must have felt as her head went under the dark water. Tevy grabbed her arm and pulled her to the surface, rolling onto his back so that he could carry her on her stomach.
“Helen,” he whispered. He shoved Margaret over to Kayla and reached for Helen, finding her hand deep. The cool water closed over his head as he fought to pull her to the surface, but she turned oddly in the current and suddenly her foot kicked into his stomach, separating them forever. He lost her body in the dark. It wasn’t hard for him to understand. Helen didn’t want to slow them down on the highway, and she was very old and couldn’t run. The river took her from him. Another Companion of Bertrand lost to save his daughter.
They ran up the highway, lightning flashes from the windows of the Mart proving that the battle still raged, until it was lost to sight. Milan had started the Hercules’s engines, and once they were on board, he shouted instructions for closing the door. Tevy joined him in the cockpit, the dials space age to him and reminding him of a flight simulator he had intended to learn when he was finished Call of Duty. But the world had ended.
During the flight, Elliot, looking pale and frightened, came up to the cockpit.
“What happened?” asked Tevy.
Elliot shook his head. “I dunno. I was just falling asleep and suddenly an army walked over my grave, a total heebee jeebee, but on steroids.”
Kayla joined them, also looking shaken. “My soul just got denser,” she said. “I think Joyce just died.”
Elliot looked at her in awe and looked back to Tevy. “Is that what happened to me? Did it happen to you?”
Tevy shook his head. What could he say? Exhaustion ended the discussion, and they all went back to sleep.
Milan was able to land at Duluth thanks to the radio and Martin Morley on the ground, who engineered a fast and furious effort to provide two long rows of bonfires to guide them into the runway. Milan abandoned the Hercules there. “Webb will court-martial me for this. I must throw my lot in with you fellows.”
They found a bus at the depot, and it only took a day of work to get it running. The bulldozer and the tractor-trailer to haul it took a couple of more days, but they were essential. The run back up to St. John’s was easier than the trip down, although without the bulldozer it would have been impossible. The rippers had stubbornly blocked the highway with cars and trees, usually where the road passed through a deep cut in the Canadian Shield rock so that they couldn’t drive around.
St John’s had changed since their departure. Barry St. John, ever the contractor, had begun a long stone wall around the building. The rippers had attacked one night, perhaps because they heard rumors of the bus convoy and figured that the Keep was weak. They had driven a truck at the front doors and nearly succeeded in ramming it through into the great hall. Only the heavy steel doors and a steady hail of gunfire had foiled the attack. The stone wall would encircle the building and have medieval towers, gun slits, and a double gate with a portcullis as well as iron doors.
“I’d love to make it of poured concrete,” Barry had said to Tevy when giving a tour. “But there’s no operating concrete plants. I’ve had a tough time even scrounging mortar. Had to send crews as far south as Thunder Bay, raiding every concrete plant and hardware store they could find.”
Tevy and Kayla took a room together, and Margaret took up residence with them. She knew who saved her in the river, and she latched onto them. They became her foster parents. Amanda and Elliot took another room. Both couples told everyone they were already married, but they did take the time a week after their arrival to dress in the best clothes they could find and have a joint wedding reception. The forty from St. John’s that they escaped with all came, and Barry St. John lavished them with ammunition as wedding presents. He and his wife took care of Margaret that night. They opened Jeff’s Balvenie and drank a toast in his and Joyce’s and Bertrand’s honor. It was really good. Even Tevy enjoyed it.
Six weeks after their return, Tevy found his shotgun sitting in the middle of the highway. There was no doubt in his mind that it was his, for he knew every groove in the wooden pistol grip, every scratch on the barrel. He had lost it at the Mart, throwing the empty gun at a Red Shirt.
Tevy took a big chance that night.
He waited until Kayla and Margaret slept soundly before he slipped out of bed and downstairs. There was a fire exit at the back of the tower and he pushed his way out, taking a deep breath as the door closed behind him, locking him out for the rest of the night. He couldn’t help but feel relief, for while he knew this was a better place to raise a family, he missed his city, and he felt claustrophobic in the Keep. He craved those missions when he and Elliot would scout deep into the Loop, killing rippers surprised to find humans out at night and hunting.
The highway was lit by a full moon, one so strong that the trees cast moon shadows. Tevy walked in the center of road until he reached the place where he had found his shotgun, a crossing of two roads, an intersection with a dead traffic signal light. He sat cross-legged on the asphalt and breathed in the cold air of
his new home, trying to understand the woodland sounds, getting used to the scent of pine and spruce. It was cold enough that the mosquitoes had slipped away, so he was comfortable and patient and he loved the stars.
He didn’t have to wait long. A figure approached, walking up from the south, his hands out from his sides to show that he carried no weapons. He made no greeting, no claims of coming in peace. The man simply walked up and sat cross-legged in front of Tevy, staring at the asphalt between them.
It was Bertrand Allan.
He looked less emaciated than at the battle at the Mart. His clothes were new. He was clean. Yet, his head shook slowly back and forth as if denying memories.
“I couldn’t save her,” Allan said at last. “I couldn’t save my love, my Angry Captain.”
Tevy didn’t answer because there was no answer. He didn’t even want to imagine having to watch Kayla die in battle.
“I couldn’t save my best friend. I couldn’t save either of them. I couldn’t save anyone.”
This, Tevy could answer. “You saved your daughter.”
Allan still looked at the asphalt, not meeting Tevy’s eyes, but now he nodded. “Yes. We saved her. Who’s taking care of her?”
“Kayla and I. Margaret chose us, I think because we saved her at the river when Helen drowned.”
“Helen drowned.” It wasn’t a question, and the numbness of the statement was more disturbing than screaming and crying. “Margaret chose you because Kayla is familiar to her. Her very soul has Joyce written all over it.”
They sat in silence.
Finally, Allan looked up and met Tevy’s eyes. “She made me drink,” he whispered.
“Drink...blood?”
“Jeff was dead. She was dying. I think maybe even I was dying, I’d been shot so many times. The Red Shirts had run away, but we knew they would be back soon. She begged me to finish her and get away. She begged me to drink her blood for strength and run. She was very near the end.”
Tevy didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.
“All these years I resisted the temptation, starved on ripper blood and animal blood, forever hungry, forever craving. Even now, I can practically hear the blood rushing in your veins, calling me.”
For a moment Tevy regretted not drawing his shotgun and having it ready.
“I gave in because she was right. I drank my lover’s blood, the first living blood I’ve ever had, and it was incredible. Malcolm was right. It’s way better than sex, better than drugs or drink or anything. And I didn’t stop there. I went crazy. I drank from the Red Shirts. By dawn I was stronger than ever. All my hurts had healed and I found refuge in the bunker. She saved my life even as she died.”
Now Allan began to shake, a quiet sob that chopped off. Tevy feared for the man’s sanity, but he let time pass, sitting face to face in the dark until well after midnight. Finally, Tevy reached out and placed a comforting hand on Allan’s knee.
The man, the ripper, looked up from the ground.
“Rippers can go dormant,” Allan said. “I want to go dormant. I’ll live for Margaret, in case she needs me some day, but not day to day. Build a cairn right here, right in the middle of the road. Build a vault, a grave, under it. I’ll occupy it and I’ll sleep. Wait till she’s an adult and tell her about me and her mother and show her the cairn. If she needs me, she can call for my help. I’ll always answer. But I swear this to you: I will never drink living blood again. Never.”
Thirty-Three - A Monument to a Hero
Barry helped Tevy craft the monument, finding the right stone, cutting it and carving it with tools they looted from a monument factory in Thunder Bay. Kayla drew the design with Margaret’s input. A cross for the religion that now worshiped Bertrand as a saint. They entwined it with a triangle, representing the Battle of the Mountain where he lost his humanity—and the trinity: Bertrand, Joyce, and Jeff.
Barry held a funeral for the three, and all of St. John’s Keep attended. The next year on the anniversary of their escape from Chicago, Tevy, Kayla, and Elliot laid a wreath at the monument. Amanda had been too sick with her pregnancy to join them.
They made it a tradition to lay a new wreath every year on that day.
Tevy always whispered, “Rest in Peace. We are here. We are good. We are safe. We are strong. We are complete. We are the Trinity.”
The End
Acknowledgements
There are so many people to thank. Mark Alliksaar, a technical instructor and cliché checker; Mark Downie, a dedicated fan and honest beta reader; Rebecca M. Senese, fellow writer and fellow e-rebel; all of The Fledglings Writers Group, for years of work; Matt A. Baker, a careful editor; Michael Custode, for great artwork; Margaret Docker, who patiently taught this physics graduate grammar and writing, something sorely lacking in my university curriculum. Many thanks to Dooley, my dependable rogue. And most of all to my wife - my honest critic and staunchest supporter. (My wife wrote that. ;)
Thanks also to all my charter fans. Your emails and reviews about Apocalypse Revolution let me know I was on the right path and encouraged me to keep going.
The final thank you belongs to you for reading this book. I write books that I enjoy reading, and I’m delighted that you made it not just to the end, but to these acknowledgements. I’m honored. I hope you enjoyed Generation Apocalypse as much as I did.
I would love to hear from you. Visit me at my blog: Beyond the Slush Pile or send me an email at [email protected]. I'm on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/michaelandremcpherson) and Twitter (@mcpherson_mike) too. Next time you’re on Amazon, please click the "Like" button for my book, or if I have moved you to prose, please leave a review. Tell your friends, tell your family, make a point of bringing up the book in casual conversation. You get the idea. It all helps me get Book Three of 1000 Souls out faster.
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The 1000 Live On!
BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!
Apocalypse Heretics: Hell Hath No Fury
Book Three of 1000 Souls - Release March, 2013
Sneak Peak
Every year at the same time he sensed the presence of human blood. Any other time of year it was too fleeting to rouse him, just someone rushing along the highway in a hurry, not stopping to gape at the monument above his grave. But in mid summer, three or four always gathered long enough for him wake from the black depths of hibernation and hear their prayer.
It was always Tevy’s voice, repeating the same soothing words: “Rest in Peace. We are here. We are good. We are safe. We are strong. We are complete. We are the Trinity.”
But this year mid summer passed without the visit, and Bertrand began to rouse without them. Hibernating is not sleep. There are no dreams, yet impressions still rolled through his sluggish brain. A large party of humans rushed past one day, enough to stir the parasites in his blood, and the cold told him that mid summer was long past.
Still, it wasn’t enough to wake him until a single person stood before his tomb, shouting and crying. “They say you're my Dad! You’re my dad! So wake up Dad. Please, we need you. Please wake up! It’s Margaret. I’m your daughter. Please, we need you so desperately.”
But waking from hibernation is not an instant process. Bertrand needed time to draw the last reserves from his body, to get the synapses firing, even though the urgency of the voice made him wish he could rise instantly. It would take him ten minutes to even move an arm, but after that he roused quickly.
Still, by the time he pushed at the stone door of the monument, Margaret was long gone. In the distance, from the direction of Barry’s Keep, Bertrand could hear gunshots and the clash of steal. He would deal with that, but first he desperately needed blood.
*
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*
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Table of Contents
Unknown Text
One - Chicago
Two - Raid on Atherley College
Three - A New War
Four - Flight to the North
Five - What Comes Out at Night
Six - Two Sides of a Triangle
Seven - St. John's Keep
Eight - Vampire Road
Nine - Monster in the Night
Ten - Chicago
Eleven - Among the Believers
Twelve - Nine Miles
Thirteen - The Ericsians
>Fourteen - First Day of High School
Fifteen - A Ripper on the Inside
Sixteen - The End of the World
Seventeen - The Bell Tower to the Boiler Room
Eighteen - Kayla's First Command
Nineteen - At the Well's Street Bridge
Twenty - Falling Back
Twenty-One - The Saint
Twenty-Two- The Offensive
Twenty-Three - The Truth
Twenty-Four - Confession
Twenty-Five - Tevy's First Command
The 1000 Souls (Book 2): Generation Apocalypse Page 33
