by Fox, Stephen
Fear finally erupted in the creature’s eyes, “Jim. We can work it out. I’m the mayor, for Pete’s sake. Don’t do …”
The axe came down and split the mayor’s head like a charred meatball. The figure stopped struggling. One more swing and the head was severed from the body. To make sure, Underwood moved the head away and then, with a running start, kicked it over the edge of the building, where it bounced twice and landed in a fish pond which graced the grounds.
He dropped the axe as his legs started to turn to jelly. Before he could fall, Marie was there holding him up. Somehow she managed to make it to the stairs before the first fireman met them and took him off her hands.
Chapter 13
“So you grabbed the axe and gave him forty whacks? How very Lizzie Borden of you.”
Sergeant Hurst and Sergeant Hamilton were having a field day listening to Underwood’s account of the GRIL disaster. Thirty-two hours had passed since the lab explosion. Underwood spent half of that time answering questions and the rest asleep on his couch, dead tired from stress and lack of sleep. Still in the same clothes, seared from the fire and stained with virtually everything imaginable he sat relating the details to his staff. His eyes burned from exhaustion and all the dirt, but after six cups of coffee, he couldn’t sleep again if he had to.
“Anyway, when the fire department showed up, they found that I had taken the mayor’s body, which must have been dead because it was burned over ninety percent of its surface area, and had chopped its deceased head off. Internal Affairs still wants me to see a shrink due to the deep rooted resentment I must have felt toward him to disfigure his body that way.”
Hamilton snickered. “And he was such a likable cuss. Whatever possessed you to do such a thing?”
Hurst chimed in, “Yeah, if you had been thinking clearer, you should have called us. I can think of at least three dozen guys that would have been glad to help you. We could have retired on all the tickets we sold.”
Underwood smiled. “Anyway, the interrogation took the rest of the night and most of the morning. Officially, it was a debriefing, but Internal Affairs had trouble swallowing some of the more bizarre turns that my story took.”
Hurst chuckled. “Can’t understand why. It’s the same old story. Boy meets vampire. Boy kills vampire repeatedly. Boy chops off vampire’s head. Sounds like an episode of the Brady Bunch to me.”
Hamilton shook his head at his partner’s comments. “You’ll have to forgive him. His mother used him for a basketball when he was young. At least you don’t have to put up with him all day long. Why just yesterday, he …”
His partner interrupted before Hamilton could regale them with another long-winded tale of Hurst’s shortcomings. “One more thing. Whatever happened to the other guy? That assassin that was helping the mayor?”
“Underwood shrugged. “Firemen uncovered Roukasis’ severed arm shortly after they arrived. Late last night they discovered another hand, torn off at the wrist. Fire officials are still combing through the rubble, but, so far, no other traces of the man have been found. Either his body was completely incinerated, or he walked away from the scene. My guess is that he survived. If he did, the detached hand indicates that he won’t be up to any new mischief for a while.”
Hamilton added, “Well, at least that’s the end of it. Case closed.”
Underwood shook his head. “I wish it was closed. We still have thousands of these beings all over, and we still haven’t settled with the senator.”
“Oh, then I guess you haven’t seen the front page today, have you?” Hamilton tossed the paper in Underwood’s direction.
The captain opened the folded paper. The large black headlines virtually shouted at him. “SENATOR O’MULLENS AND FIVE AIDES DIE.” Underneath, in smaller letters, “Remaining Staff Mum on Cause - New AIDS Virus Suspected.”
Underwood tossed the paper back to him. “You seem to have read the article. Give out with your best summary, Herr Doktor Hamilton.”
Hamilton bowed from the waist. “Danka. Well, it seems that Senator O’Mullens collapsed at the state Capitol, one day after returning from a conference in Chicago.” Hamilton looked wide-eyed at the captain. “Any of this sound familiar?”
A growl from Underwood. “Stop stalling. Get on with it.”
“The senator was rushed to St. Thomas Hospital, where she lapsed into a coma and died within eight hours. Preliminary diagnosis is AIDS, but she was given a physical just last month, including blood work, and no sign of any problems were found.”
Hurst chimed in. “Funny thing. Her records indicated she had A positive blood, but what little that remained of the blood in her body tested out as O negative. Hospital doctors are at a loss to account for the discrepancy.”
Hamilton continued. “Reporters rushed to her family physician. When they discovered his office locked up in the middle of the day, with patients who had been waiting for him since early morning, the police were called. They found him sitting at his desk in his office. The coroner says he had been dead for at least twelve hours. Autopsy results are not complete, but the technicians say the blood work is consistent with AIDS.”
A grim smile came over Underwood’s face. “So it’s working. Thank God!”
The two detectives looked at each other, with Hurst being the first to ask. “What did you do? I know you said you hoped something would work, but how—?”
“Remember when you helped me get a blood sample from the senator at the courthouse? I had discovered that the blood of the Chosen was not immune to the AIDS virus. The virus could undo all the changes that the super blood made in these creatures. Before we went to the courthouse, I had a doctor help me infect the needles with the virus.”
Hurst smirked. “Do I get three guesses which incredibly gorgeous doctor gave you a hand?”
The captain ignored him. “So while we were getting the blood sample, we were actually infecting O’Mullens with the AIDS virus at the same time.”
Cocking his head, Hurst continued, “Okay, that explains how you got the senator. But how did you get all the other ones?”
“What other ones?”
Hamilton moved over to the television and flicked it on. “While you’ve been asleep, all hell has broken loose around the country. Reports are coming in from everywhere about prominent people dropping dead in hours from AIDS. An editor from Milwaukee, eight members of a law firm in Dallas, a surgeon from New York City. The wire services are being deluged with reports.”
Underwood nodded. “And in a short while, they will be linking many of the first victims to a certain conference that took place in Chicago. All the rest of the victims can be traced directly or indirectly to that conference.”
Hamilton looked puzzled. “I see how you infected the senator. But how did she infect the others? Obviously she didn’t have sex with each and every one of the members of that convention.”
“I got the clue from something that Patrick said in his interview. He told us that the Chosen had a way of greeting one another. Each of the Chosen slashed themselves and would exchange blood. As a security system, it was deemed impenetrable, as it was an act that no normal person would do, or could do, without fear.” A chorus of nodding heads erupted, as each of the listeners realized where this was going. “The exchange of blood was a tribute to the method in which they were chosen, and became Chosen. When the senator went to the convention she performed this ritual countless times, and the people she performed it with, performed it again with others. Hopefully most of them lasted until they got home and performed the ritual with family and friends in their home cities. And, God willing, the spreading will continue.”
Hurst interrupted as the reporter droned on. “By the way, we seem to have a casualty in our ranks. It seems that Sargent Marsh was found dead in her house yesterday. Her symptoms are similar to these. Obviously she was the snitch that kept them informed.”
“She worked in the dispatcher’s office and we think she must have been the o
ne that led Johnson and Beckman into that trap. A message that they thought was from the top brass through the dispatcher and they would have gone anywhere.”
Underwood nodded. “I put in a call for backup at the lab last night. That would also explain why no help arrived. She must have been the dispatcher that took my request for help. She never passed the message along.”
“Ahh, that explains it.” All eyes turned to Lieutenant Morris. “It seems there was an apparent malfunction in the recording equipment Saturday night. Our technicians have been going crazy trying to explain a twenty-second gap in the recording tape. No one tied it to Marsh because she was working two rooms down from the recording machine.”
“It’s incredible what these people could do with their minds. And scary too.”
On the screen a pretty female reporter stood in front of the camera outside an AIDS clinic in Portland in the classic pose as Hurst turned the sound up. “Health care officials are baffled by this outbreak and claim there is no known strand of AIDS that could strike this quickly. They also could give no clue as to why this new virus seems to be affecting only upper income adults, including doctors, lawyers and politicians. As of this minute not one case has been recorded below the age of 25. Also this strain seems to have ignored the poor, the drug users and the homosexuals - the fertile breeding ground for all other members of the HIV family of disorders.”
Hurst reached up and changed the channel. An older man at a local network was facing the camera. “We apologize for the confusion. Apparently the announcer at our New York affiliate just collapsed. We will return to that report in a few minutes. In the meantime three plane crashes in the last ten hours may be linked to this phenomenon. Witnesses in each crash say that both the pilot and copilot collapsed and the plane plummeted out of control.”
The temporary announcer paused, as someone off camera got his attention. “Wait, this report just in from the Associated Press. An entire company in Michigan doing research on blood has been declared dead. The Walachia Foundation, based in Flint, Michigan was apparently doing research on a rare virus, when it is assumed the virus escaped into the air. Thirty-two members of the staff were found dead. The remaining nine members were rushed to the hospital, but in vain. Less than an hour ago the last member of the staff died. The virus also affected a neighboring law firm before winds dispersed the virus, and all fourteen partners in the firm were killed. Strangely enough, eight secretaries employed by the firm, and working in the offices, were not affected. Also outside the law firm, not one other case has been detected within a ten mile radius in the densely populated suburbs of Flint. Health officials are denying that these deaths are linked to the AIDS panic besieging the country, but doctors are noting the similarities in the symptoms.”
He tried another channel. “Investigators have started linking the dead to a conference held in Chicago. At last count fifteen of the victims had recently returned from business trips to Chicago. The epidemic appears to have begun at a conference funded by a research foundation studying rare blood diseases. As conference members dispersed they took the virus with them and spread it even further. Scientists at this time can’t be certain whether the foundation is responsible for the spread of the virus. Meanwhile investigators are working feverishly to unravel the mysteries and contain the spread of the disease.”
A hand clutching papers appeared on the left side of the screen. The reporter looked left and grabbed the papers. Underwood was reminded of the way Bob Saget got the results from the off camera person on his hit television show, America’s Funniest Videos. At least the reporter didn’t insult the owner of the hand.
The reporter continued. “This just in. Our Chicago branch has just learned that the conference suspected in the outbreak was sponsored by the Walachia Foundation,
the company whose entire work force was struck down by the virus. Doctors and support personnel from the Atlanta Center for Disease Control are already at the scene of the conference in Chicago and the company in Michigan, taking samples, trying to determine the source of the contamination.”
Another flick of the remote. “Reports are filtering in that this epidemic is not limited to the U.S. as believed earlier. Several similar deaths are being investigated in London, Paris, and Tokyo. China has shut down all international flights and severed communications, but it is unsure at this time whether these measures are to keep the disease out or to keep it from spreading within. Officials refuse to confirm rumors of deaths in the upper branches of the Chinese government.”
Hurst turned the set off. “Well from the looks of things, your strategy seems to be working very well. The threat is over.”
“No!” Underwood was adamant. “Don’t ever think that! The threat will never be over. The Chosen who haven’t socialized with others recently will get wise with all this publicity. They will refuse to share blood and devise a new means of identification. For a while they’ll go even deeper underground than they ever were. But they will not go away. Some of the Chosen who are nearing regeneration may have trouble getting money and new identities without the Walachia Foundation in place to help, but most will find ways to circumvent these minor irritations.”
He looked around. All eyes were on him, listening. He continued. “The Chosen will move to Central America, or other countries where identification is not such a big concern. Many of them will work with the criminal elements to create the backgrounds and identities they need. A new Foundation will grow out of the ashes and the Chosen will put their organization back together again. “Until and unless we find a way to isolate and annihilate these creatures, they will continue to prey on humanity.”
Underwood shook his head. “But it will take time for the Chosen to rebuild their network. And we can use that time to create blood tests, or systems of tests, where a team of doctors will check whether the blood is normal. But the hardest part is going to get people to believe that the threat is real. Because, after all, vampires are just a myth, a fairy tale. People who haven’t witnessed the threat first hand will assume the Chosen are merely a nightmare. And remember, the tapes, the blood samples, the bodies, all of the proof of their existence has been destroyed.”
As the men are talking, in another part of town, a man, frail and stooped with age, sits in an easy chair in front of a small TV. With tired eyes he looks down at the items in his arthritic hands. In one hand, he holds the doctor’s diagnosis that confirms what he has suspected for weeks - the pain that wracked his body wouldn’t be a problem for much longer. In the other hand is a small vial containing a small amount of dark reddish liquid. The label on the vial reads, “Patrick, James - Case # 5461227SAV.” The vial had been stolen from the lab where he worked, during the chaos following Dr. Bell’s gruesome demise. Somehow the intruders had overlooked one container of blood.
The man continues to look down at the items. He is afraid to do what needs to be done, but he is also afraid of the continually increasing pain. After a lifetime devoted to detecting and preventing crimes, he knows the unspeakable deeds he will be forced to perform. But is that too high a price to pay for immortality? Not only recovering his lost strength, but actually increasing it to superhuman levels. To walk up stairs without wheezing and straining. Why, he could even leap and run up stairs.
Such tremendous power in such a small package. He could open the vial, nick his finger and pour the blood over the small wound. That’s all it would take. Or he could empty the vial down the sink and smash the container. Either act would be final, with no going back.
He could be young and vibrant again. Women would look at him with interest once more, instead of revulsion or pity. He could do anything - be anybody. And all it would cost him was his humanity.
A spasm of pain as a wheezing cough wracks his body. Suddenly in his heart he made his decision. He raised the vial.
Thanks to the Red Room Writers, who helped me grow as a writer. Karin Gillespie, Kyle Steele, Renee McKenzie, Rhonda Jones. I love youse guys.
&n
bsp; Also a special thanks to Connie Barrow who became my muse and made me realize that not all criticism is bad.
Posthumous thanks to Elizabeth Estes and Bill Bass. You both helped me along the path.
