Albins giggled at them, but he wouldn't let go of his parents' hands.
"You have to go with them," Bernhard said, pulling his arm up. "They'll take care of you. We'll see you in a little while."
"No!" Albins cried out, and his voice echoed up the stairwell, through doorways, in rooms with bricked-up windows. Dust rained down on them from the cracked ceiling. "You just want to leave me here and get away and never come back."
"What do you want?" Gizela asked, her voice quavering as she ran her fingers through his thin black hair
"Don't leave," Albins answered, with determination.
"We won't," said Bernhard. "There's a place for us to wait?" he asked the attendants.
"Upstairs," a woman's voice croaked in the stillness. Beyond the left hand doorway, a flame came to life in a pool of oil contained in the hollow of an upturned skull on the floor. An old woman in rags leaned into the flickering light, pointed upstairs, grinned toothlessly. "That's where we all end up." She cackled, showing gaps in her rows of teeth.
She reminded Bernhard of his mother, in the madness of her later years.
Albins moaned as if his illness was suddenly too much for him. But the healers had said there'd be no pain. At least, no physical discomfort. Bernhard recognized the sign, and understood. The change was upon the boy. He was reacting to the old woman, to the attendants. He was frightened.
"We'll be close by," Bernhard said, going down on one knee to talk directly to his son. "You can come to us, when you're ready. If you want to."
"You won't leave, like you did before?"
Bernhard opened his mouth to say something, closed it, feeling Gizela move, sensing her warning. Don't argue with the boy. Don't explain. Don't make excuses.
"No."
"You'll stay with Mom?"
"Yes."
"And you'll both be there if I need you?"
"Yes."
Reluctantly, Albins released his grip on Bernhard's hand, and his mother's. He went between the attendants, but they did not offer their bony, claw-like appendages and the boy did not take hold of them. When they turned and walked down the hall to the back of the building, Albins followed, a step behind. He never looked back.
"He's so brave," Gizela said.
And I'm not? he almost answered. But that was an old argument, from another time and place. He'd left that all behind, proved to himself and her and anyone and anything that cared that he was as strong and brave as any. He had the skulls to prove it, and the gratitude of those who'd needed the blood and meat and bones he'd provided. Of course, Gizela would say something like, too bad you couldn't do all of that for us, when it mattered.
Those were old arguments. Dead ones. He was back for Albins. They were here for Albins. Blood called its children out of the wilderness. And death.
"Yes," he said, at last. "He's a brave one."
They went up creaking stairs to the first floor, flickering candles giving way to strings of naked bulbs hung across the ceiling. A young man in a bloody surgical gown emerged from a doorway, nearly ran into them. His startled expression settled quickly into a professionally neutral demeanor as he nodded his head at them and started moving down the hall.
"Why does it happen?" Gizela asked, taking hold of the man's elbow.
In better days, she would have licked the blood from her fingers.
The man's expression hardened momentarily, a belated predator's reaction to surprise and cornering. Responsibility made him pause, obligation softened his body's bearing.
"It's part of the curse, isn't it?" the young man answered. "Another price for power."
"In my father's day," Bernhard said, "they used to leave newborns in his condition on hilltops, or drown them in rivers. If the change took them later, they'd be dressed up in animal furs and driven in their madness to a village or town, where the citizens would rise up in self-defense and slay the monster." Gizela and the man both looked to him with their lips parted, as if burdened by the need to speak but unable to find words. Tears glistened in Gizela's eyes. "Of course, what we do these days is so much more civilized," Bernhard added hastily, cringing at the last word.
Shame accompanied savage elation at having struck a wound in his mate, and himself. The need to run wild and with the pack tore at each other, and at him. In panic, Bernhard's thoughts fled down unexpected paths, and he found himself wondering, for the first time in his life, how he might have turned out differently if, when the affliction claimed his brother, their father had taken the family to such a hospice for final goodbyes, instead of tossing his oldest son, still living, on his own funeral pyre. What might have been said between brothers, rivals, mirrors selves and others? Would the experience of a gentler passing have changed Bernhard, made him able to stay true to his first mating with Gizela? Might he have stayed with the pack, instead of turning wild and reverting to the savagery of the lone outsider to find what he had lost of himself in this new land and age?
"Some say what goes on here makes us more like prey," the man said, showing his teeth in sympathy for Bernhard. "Others claim our work helps bind the tribes closer together, so we can survive this crowded world," he continued, nodding to Gizela. "Who is to say what is right and wrong? We can do only what our hearts compel us to do." The man slipped out of Gizela's hold and took a step, then half-turned and, with a smile, added, "That is our curse, is it not?"
Alone on the second floor landing, tempted by a slaughterhouse stench, Bernhard and Gizela drifted to the nearest doorway. The old apartment walls and doors had been knocked down, the debris left on the floor. In the rubble lay fresh meat, mostly animal, while an attendant in a corner cleaned the bones of old, rotted cuts with its teeth. Gizela bumped against Bernhard. Her stomach grumbled. She wept. Bernhard thought at first from the pain of losing her son, but after a few moments, and the growl of her stomach, he knew also she was struggling against a part of her nature. He put his arm around her, and she held him, and perhaps for the first time in a long while they understood one another.
Bugs and other vermin infested the room, and the stench of blood and flesh and offal reminded Bernhard of old dens in lost places. It was the smell that had welcomed him downstairs. He was comforted as much by the resonance with those faded memories as he was by the feel of his mate pressed against his ribs.
They moved as one to the next doorway, which led to another destroyed apartment. In this raw space, however, others, mainly couples, in their same age range, waited. Along with them, some elders, largely single, and there were a few isolated males and females off by themselves in a corner, separate but linked, Bernhard guessed, by the shared tragedy of losing a mate.
As Bernhard and Gizela entered, an adolescent and an old woman joined the gathering near another doorway. A few people moved toward the newcomers, while the rest backed away. The old woman was greeted by an elderly man and a young pair, while a middle-aged couple bracketed the adolescent. Bernhard looked away from their intimate moment, as did most others. Gizela stared momentarily, then went back to weeping. After a while, attendants came to take the adolescent and the old woman away.
More came and went. Gizela learned to look away. How many come here to die? Bernhard wondered, touched by fear. Surely there couldn't be so many of their kind in the city—were they all dying? Had the old spirit illness become a plague? But a challenging grumble from another male, a hiss from a female pacing back and forth, crystallized what his instincts already knew: the hospice served those from within as well as outside the territory. Focused on his boy, still reeling from the reunion with his old mate, he had not been conscious of all the different clan and tribal scents crowded into the building. But the scent of sorrow joined them all, sublimating feuds and rivalries. All were welcome in this neutral ground, where blood lines were pared, culled, and even ended. The place was like an elephant's graveyard, filled with the bones of brothers, sisters, lovers, offspring, ancestors, where the living and the dead parted ways. It was a new way for them. Strange.
But as the man in the bloody coat had said, a necessary trial. With prey transforming the world around them, hunters had to adapt. Or stop hunting.
Their turn came. Albins came out from one of the holes in the outer walls. In the short while away from them, his skin had turned yellow and his eyes bloodshot. Bernhard and Gizela were on him in an instant.
"How are you feeling?" she asked, stroking Albins' face and peering into his eyes.
The boy flinched at her touch, blinked, looked away.
"Don't be afraid," Bernhard said, going down on both knees and holding his son still by the shoulders. "Be brave, be strong. Be true to your blood."
Albins started crying, shook himself free of Bernhard, and refused his mother's embrace. He stood frozen, looking at his feet, whimpering. Bernhard went to the dining hall and brought back some meat, as he had seen others do. Food was reassuring, he reasoned, a necessary ritual that grounded everyone in day-to-day reality. They ate the flesh together, like a family, but when it came down to gnawing at the bones, Albins avoided the marrow, continued to pick at flesh and sinew, then lost interest.
"Take me out of this place," he said, sitting listlessly on rubble and dust.
"We can't," Gizela replied, with barely a hint of a quaver in her voice. Bernhard knew she was forcing herself to be strong, to show him, or perhaps only herself, that she was capable of doing what had to be done.
Albins looked to Bernhard. "Please, take me home." The boy's eyes struck Bernhard like an unexpected reflection. What Bernhard saw of himself made him feel lost.
Bernhard had gone home. Home to his birthplace across the water, then to wilderness, and now back to the cities, to his mate and son. Each journey had felt right, until the need came to go someplace else. What could he tell Albins about leaving, or about coming home, that would do any good? Home was not a place anymore, but a state of mind, a feeling one had from the familiar scent of a den, or a meal shared with family. Home was where you needed to be when there was nowhere else to go, when nothing else was right. This place was home, for Albins. Though not for Bernhard, or Gizela. At least, not yet.
"I can't," Bernhard said, and the words hurt him more than he thought possible. He spared the boy the truth.
"I'm scared," Albins said, tears running from his eyes as he looked down.
"I know," Bernhard offered.
"Just don't go away," Albins said. "Don't leave me."
"You do the same," Bernhard said. His head told him the words were unwise, but the heart, the blood, felt their truth.
They sat together, all three, for many breaths that seemed like one. "Sorry," Albins said, at last, shivering as he stood up, "I have to." His gaze flitted about the room. He was terrified of everyone, everything. Including his mother and father. The attendants came and helped him leave.
Bernhard experienced the same crushing emptiness the boy, and Gizela, must have felt when he'd gone off to answer the call of his heart, to prove what he had to by himself, rather than staying to prove what he had to with his mate and son.
He took hold of Gizela's arm. His claws bit into her flesh, but she barely acknowledged the pain. "I wish we could give him what he wants. I wish we could rescue him."
"I wish he could rescue us," Gizela said.
"Careful," muttered a nearby stranger. "Keep talking like that, and you'll be growing a soul yourselves."
They left the waiting room. Frustration bubbled in Bernhard. Helplessness sapped his strength, his focus. He looked for a sign of disdain from Gizela, for the slightest hint of contempt from a young woman passing by carrying a satchel of clattering objects. Bernhard stopped her, barely registering the bones. "We want to see our son," he said, words rumbling together like a challenge.
The young woman gazed past them into the room they'd just left, then turned away, looked down. "They'll take him upstairs, if you want to see that." She trudged off with her burden, then looked back and said, "Not everyone can deal with what happens." Bernhard and Gizela went upstairs, to the building's top floor.
Along with a few others, including the old, cackling woman they had met downstairs, they waited outside a locked steel door with a pair of attendants at the top of the stairs. The old woman nodded a greeting and said, "I tried, but I couldn't keep away. The mystery wouldn't let me."
Bernhard froze in front of her, studied her face, finding grief and pain and remorse, but also the slightest trace of amusement, as if there was a joke hidden in the whole process. Or perhaps he was the jest. He wondered if his mother was still alive, babbling in a cave beneath the earth, stalking insects and smelling like excrement.
"Who did you lose?" Gizela asked.
The old woman shrugged her shoulders. "We never really have anyone."
Was that a comment directed to him, Bernhard wondered. He bit back an answer. He wasn't here to play games with an old woman, to jostle for position in the pack.
The entire floor was sealed off. More hospice workers came and went, slipping through the door, none stopping to talk to those waiting. Finally, Bernhard stepped in front of one of the workers and asked, "Is my son in there?"
"They're brought in directly from downstairs," the worker replied with deference.
"Why weren't we told?" Gizela asked, showing teeth and anger.
"You go in when you're ready."
The worker started to leave, but Bernhard wouldn't step aside. "Did he ask for us?
"No."
The worker slipped away. Bernhard and Gizela went inside, pushing the door open. The attendants did not try to stop them. None of the others waiting followed, even turning away from the entrance, as if afraid to catch an unwanted glimpse of the heaven, or hell, that had captured whoever they had let go on the level below.
The floor was brightly lit with natural light from open windows and skylights. Colorful furniture and toys were strewn about in random fashion. The smell of cleansers made Bernhard's stomach churn, and he sagged against Gizela in shock. She took his weight for a moment, then weakened. He regained his composure and held her up.
Children played with each other, running around with abandon, leaping, jumping, rolling on the floor, throwing balls, moving furniture and toys with fierce, focused energy. Adults walked among the children. Some stayed close to the walls, stunned, taking in the alien environment with apparent disbelief, completely lost. Others, especially the elders, stayed close to the children, joining in their play, or sitting with them and telling stories, bonding, forming new families. Everyone appeared healthy, strong. Healed.
Albins was there, running with two girls a little older than him and some younger boys. His cheeks had filled out, his eyes had cleared, and his laughter was like a bird's calling, joyously announcing the hunger of life. He acted as if he didn't see his parents, didn't sense their nearness. There was a wall between them. The world constructed on this floor, the world of prey, was the wall.
Bernhard wanted to vomit all he had eaten.
The old woman finally came through the door. She stood behind them breathing hoarsely. When her throat had quieted, she said, "You know, there's a school of our kind which believes that in the past some tribes let them live."
"And what happened?" Gizela asked, too quickly.
"Their bloodlines died."
"Oh," Gizela said, crestfallen.
"They believe the bloodlines died because their tribes were redeemed, the curse lifted. The act of mercy saved them."
Bernhard snarled, rage catching on the remains of loss and frustration. "And what does redemption mean?" He waved a hand in dismissal. "Becoming prey? Who would believe such a lie? Who would want it to be true? The threat of the affliction of a soul is only part of the cost of our power, but we pay it. Gladly." His tongue thickened and he avoided Gizela's gaze, not wanting to see how happy she might be with the price she'd paid for the life she had. "Even the prey take our curse onto themselves to become what we are. But none of us, not even your precious thinking schools, seek out the souls that turn us f
rom what we are. We call the thing we carry a curse, we revere the chance for redemption, as if some great Hand will scoop us all up at once and deposit us in a paradise we can't even imagine. But what is true is: what we are sets us above the others. It is our curse that remains desired in the world."
"But the curse may not be the only desire out there," the old woman said. "Perhaps, some might want deliverance from being either hunter or prey." She gave him another near-smile, dangerous in its ambiguity. "What do you want?"
Bernhard's face twisted with disgust.
"But where do the souls that grow inside some of us come from, if the curse gives us a name instead of a soul conceived in our mothers' womb?" Gizela asked, almost pleading.
The old woman's gaze followed a middle-aged man for a moment, and her face sagged, her eyes glistened. She shook her head, looked to Gizela. "Maybe they come from the prey who give up their souls to take on our curse. Discarded, they haunt the world, poisoned spores cast to the winds, until one finds an untended garden to seed: one of us, empty, vulnerable through no fault of our own, our curse turned in on itself through age or the chance of our heritage. The prey would call these wandering souls carcinogens attacking the genetically predisposed to cancer."
Bernhard spat. Gizela said, "We are not prey."
"Of course not," the old woman said quickly. "Maybe, for all our power, it is our hunger for what we lack that makes us grow them, to our destruction. Or perhaps they blossom in those whose emptiness is too great, in a revolt of Nature against the imbalance of the curse. There are even elders who believe the One Who Cursed causes these souls to grow among us, as a test."
"For what?" Gizela asked, in a whisper.
The old woman blinked as if momentarily blinded by a bright light. "Debatable, like everything else. To see if the curse still holds, or if we have grown the capacity for redemption. Perhaps we and the prey are bound in a cycle of punishment, either cursed to be without soul and hunt, or to have one, and be hunted. The One Who Cursed is known for irony, in other circumstances."
Horror Library, Volume 4 Page 20
