Bertrand had planned to let the man speak for longer, but he couldn't let that go. "They're not vampires!" he shouted.
The man on the countertop turned, revealing a wide face and sharp blue eyes. "You're Bertrand Allan? I'm Alison's dad, Barry St. John. Come on up! I'm just the warm-up." He held out one hand.
The moment of truth. Only once in his life had Bertrand ever spoken before a large crowd, and that was to give a speech to convince people to vote for him for student council president—a hopeless task, since he wasn't one of the cool kids. Why he had tilted at the windmill he had never been able to say, except perhaps that a girl whose attentions he had craved had told him it was a great idea.
That day he had trembled before the crowd, and he hadn't believed his own speech that claimed he could do more for the school than his oh-so-popular preppy opponent.
But today he believed what he had to tell people. He knew he could offer them more than meaningless slogans with no real promises or solutions. Was Erics right after all? Had he really changed in the last few months because others were dying—others with a portion of the same soul? Had his soul gotten denser?
Bertrand accepted Barry's helping hand and climbed onto the counter, expecting the man to continue speaking for a time, but he jumped down on the kitchen side of the restaurant, leaving Bertrand alone.
"Are you the Dormant Hero?" shouted someone. Others called out similar questions, forcing Bertrand to hold out his hands to quiet the crowd.
What should he say? For a moment, the panic of stage fright started to well up, but Emile's gruff voice intruded. "Just tell them the truth, Bert. They're ready to hear it." He stood beside Alison's dad, looking up at Bertrand, ready to support him.
"I'm Bertrand Allan, and I'm here to tell you that we all need to be heroes now." He took a breath and waited to hear shouts of derision or disbelief, but the crowd waited in desperate silence. His confidence began to build.
"We are on the cusp of the greatest tragedy of humanity, but don't be fooled by talk of vampires. These rippers do drink blood, yeah, but they're not like the vampires of horror movies. They don't fear crucifixes or religious objects. Holy water won't hurt them. They don't need an invitation to enter your home and garlic doesn't faze them a bit."
"But they do drink blood?" shouted someone, a question more than a statement.
"Yes! Like the Chicago Rippers, they will cut your throat with a knife and they will drink your blood, but they have a disease, a plague that they spread by intentionally infecting people. They force some to drink their blood, and that spreads the parasites into the body."
"Why would they do that?"
"Because they're building an army and they intend to take over the world. They want to reengineer society so that people are slaves, forced to donate blood to an elite of rippers. They will allow only those to live who are cattle for them, to provide them with food."
"Bullshit." The shout came from the back of the room, but the crowd grumbled and turned to accuse the shouter rather than to challenge Bertrand.
"If you think I'm full of it then take a walk tonight after sunset," shouted Bertrand. "Unless you're in league with them, part of their Daylight Brigade, you'll be bleeding to death in a few minutes. I've spoken with a ripper face-to-face, and but for these two people," he said, pointing to Jeff and Joyce, who stood at the far end of the counter but on the kitchen side, "I would be a dead man. A woman I trusted came for me in daylight, holding me up until after dark when her ripper friend could come around."
"I thought you said they weren't vampires."
Bertrand fought to be patient, reminding himself that everything he said would have sounded ridiculous even a few months ago. "They're not like vampires because the rippers are very real and superstitions won't protect you. They only have two things in common with vampires: they need our blood for food and the sun will kill them. Listen, you all know in your hearts what's going on out there or you wouldn't be here, and now is the time of your greatest peril, because the rippers still control the media and the government, the police and maybe even the military. The news will tell you they are working through a crisis, but they'll always be vague about what exactly that crisis is all about."
Alison's dad, Barry St. John, pounded the countertop to get Bertrand's attention. "But what do we do?"
"We need to go on the offensive." Bertrand looked up from Barry and back to the crowd. "Right now. We have a great advantage here: daylight. Mr. St John here was right when he said that you need to arm yourselves and fortify your homes, but we can't just sit and wait for them to come for us at night. At the rate they're recruiting and murdering, they'll outnumber humans by Christmas. We need to start thinning their numbers. Right now! If you have a neighbor or a coworker who never comes out during the day, then you need to go into their houses and search their basements and drag them out into the light. Today! Right now!"
"Commit murder!" shouted that same dissenter.
The crowd roiled, an angry mutter, but it was again directed at the dissenter, not Bertrand.
Bertrand held up his arms to quiet them before he continued. "Anyone who is human can volunteer to come out into the sun and bask in its glory. Anyone who is a ripper is a serial killer who must drink blood to survive. I'm not advocating murder. I'm simply saying that the sun can prove right now who is innocent and who is guilty of multiple murders. Right now!"
"All right!" shouted Emile, startling Bertrand.
But the crowd loved it, joining him to shout and cheer. If the dissenter had any further comments, he was too afraid to shout them or simply couldn't be heard over the crowd. Someone began chanting, "Right now! Right now! Right now!"
The crowd took up the call, and Bertrand let it roll for a full minute, his heart soaring, until he decided it had nearly run its course. He held out his hands to again order silence. "We are at a dangerous moment in history, one that could tip either way, so we gotta act quickly and smartly. You need to organize into militias—defense committees—that can travel together doing basement-to-basement searches. We haven't the strength yet to clean out the police stations or the state house or city hall, so we have to do unto them as they've been doing unto us: we start by going after their loners. When we've made our streets safe, we go after their bosses. This is our time to act! Right now!"
Cheers followed by the chant of "Right now!" shook the restaurant, but even over this noise, the sirens penetrated the crowd's awareness. It fell silent as several police cruisers approached, screaming to a halt with flashing lights. Police officers leapt from their cars and ran toward McDonalds, several with guns drawn. Two managed to clear a path into the restaurant.
"Bertrand Allan," shouted one. "You are under arrest for the murder of Destiny Kim and Stanley Needleman."
The room fell into a hush. Just the moment Bertrand needed. He repressed the urge to run, because he wanted to fight, and these were his enemies. "How many people here think I murdered our fellow humans?"
"Shut up and put your hands on your head." The two officers had managed to push halfway up the restaurant, but the crowd became increasingly incompliant, forcing the police to push and shove to get farther.
Sinclair climbed awkwardly up onto the counter and held up his badge. "This man," he said, pointing to Bertrand, "did not commit murder. But if these traitors to the Chicago Police Department take him into custody they will commit murder today, and Bertrand Allan will be their victim."
"Are you going to let them take him?" shouted Barry St. John.
"No!" shouted many, followed by someone calling, "Right now!"
The crowd took up the chant, and a hostile circle surrounded the two officers.
"Don't kill them!" shouted Bertrand. "Maybe they don't know what's going on!"
But the chant grew in volume, forcing the police to back up, guns now aimed at the people nearest them to hold them back. Outside, the chat had been picked up by those who'd been listening at the front and side door and the drive-thr
ough window. A police car began to rock, and shouted orders were ignored. A gunshot snapped and someone screamed.
The crowd exploded, swirling around the police cars and besieging the cops. More gunfire made the crowd surge away in panic, but suddenly a flaming bottle hit a cruiser, splashing burning liquid across the hood. There were more gunshots, and one of the cops fell, pulled back to a good cruiser by his fellows. A third cruiser tipped up, lifted by dozens of hands, as much as a shield as an act of defiance. The cruiser teetered on its side for several seconds before rolling onto its roof, smashing the flashing lights.
"Right now!" shouted several people, and more gunfire cracked.
"Holy crap!" shouted Bertrand, jumping from the counter and running toward the front door. They mustn't engage the police. That was a futile effort.
But Joyce outran him and turned in to put her back to the door and a hand out to order a stop. "No way, Bert. This is way out of your hands now. We have to get out of here."
The police succeeded in piling into a cruiser, two of them sitting in the trunk and firing indiscriminately back at the crowd even as their car sped away. A window beside Joyce shattered, and they all dropped to the ground.
Bertrand knew fear like he had never known before, but not for himself. He scrambled forward through the shards that now littered the floor.
"Joyce! Joyce!" Don't let her be dead! His whole being screamed it—prayed it. Please don't let her be dead.
Joyce looked up, her cheek bloody. "We have to get you out of here," she said. "Now!"
Bertrand didn't argue.
Nineteen - The Sanctuary of St. Michael's
They ran for the back of the restaurant, Morley waving them in but stopping Gonsalves and Chin at the back door. "You can't go out dressed like cops. That crowd will tear you apart after what your buddies did."
"They're not my buddies!" shouted Gonsalves, looking like he wanted to draw his own gun.
But Morley stood tall and firm. "Doesn't matter. You need to get out of those uniforms now and into one of mine. Follow me, quick." He led the two into his office while Bertrand and the others considered their options.
"My place is up north," said Barry, his bald head shiny from the sweat generated by heat of what, until moments ago, had been an overcrowded restaurant.
"We need to go somewhere closer," said Joyce. "This is a bullshit charge but there's no way Bertrand will get a chance to defend himself if he gets picked up. We need a sanctuary where we can't be cornered. I don't trust the house we were in last night because it's too easy to connect to you."
Bertrand hit on the word sanctuary. "St. Mike's. It's close by and the pastor there is a friend and a believer. There's also lots of people sheltering there overnight these days, people who don't have to be told what's going on, and some of them have guns."
Screams and shouts from the front of the restaurant and the street proved that the riot had taken on a new and desperate phase, and more sirens announced that reinforcements were speeding their way.
"We have to move." Joyce looked enviously at Jeff's Ruger. "And I have to get a gun, dammit. Why didn't I grab one from that house when I had the chance."
"Love that Super Redhawk," said Emile, referring to Jeff's Ruger. "A little big, though. Here's something you can handle until I get you a few gun lessons," he added to Joyce.
He pulled a .45 Colt from under his sweatshirt. "You didn't know you were coming to a gunfight?" He handed it to Joyce with his left hand. In his right he already held a .357 Magnum, one of the guns he'd been able to save before his shop had been raided. "She's right though, Bert. We have to move before this place is surrounded and the crowd's dispersed with full-autos. Don't think they won't use them. They don't have to worry about TV news or courts."
Bertrand nodded. "We'll wait for the others to change, and we'll all go together."
Emile looked like he was about to argue, but Gonsalves' and Chin's arrival in McDonalds uniforms made him laugh instead. "Don't we all look so ready for business. I'll have a Big Mac, Large Fries—"
Gonsalves looked like he was preparing an acid response, but Sinclair beat him to it. "Forget it. We're all going to St. Mike's to regroup," he said to the late arrivals. "We'll have to leave the cars because the police will have cordoned off the neighborhood. So let's go into the back alleys. Everybody ready?"
Bertrand nodded and Sinclair kicked open the back door. They ran through chaos.
*
Father Alvarez didn't look surprised to see Bertrand.
"I'm glad you've returned." He warmly shook Bertrand's hand. "Some of my parishioners heard you speak at McDonalds and have told me of the police firing on the crowd. Come." He led them through the paneled corridors of the rectory and into a meeting room, one with a heavy table and comfortable chairs around it. "Please," he waved to the chairs. "Martha will bring us some tea, and please, you can put your weapons away. My people will give us plenty of warning if we need them." A large wooden crucifix dominated one of the paneled walls, and a portrait of the pope faced it from the opposite side of the room.
Bertrand's cheeks burned as he stowed his Glock in the holster in the small of his back. He had brought a drawn gun into a church—mind you, Father Alvarez had killed three teenagers right in front of the altar.
They all sat and introductions were made for the benefit for Father Alvarez and Barry St. John. He was the only one Bertrand didn't know, but then he hardly knew Emile or Helen or the cops.
Barry took a seat by his daughter Alison, right across from Bertrand. "I don't see how we can stay in the city anymore. It's too late tonight to risk it, but I think we should make a run for the country first thing in the morning. It's harder for rippers to gather in numbers out there."
"I'm not leaving everyone in Chicago to die." Bertrand looked around to see if anyone else agreed. "There's a war going on here and half the population doesn't know about it."
"Word is spreading quickly though." Father Alvarez had taken a seat at the head of the table. "My people continue to spread the word every day, but we have a population problem at this church now. So many come here for sanctuary each night that we are overcrowded. It concerns me that there may come a night when we have to turn people away. Where will they go?"
"Canada." Barry leaned forward, his hands clasped together. "I'm building a fortress up there, far from the cities where this plague is the worst, and I'm moving my family up there soon, but we're going to need numbers to protect the place. It's got farm fields around it, solar panels and windmills and even a hydro-generator."
"No." Bertrand stood, too restless to stay in one place, and began to pace as he spoke. "Fortresses are targets and by moving there you're giving up on all the humans everywhere else. What we need is to do exactly what you've done." He pointed to Father Alvarez. "We need to organize people into defensive positions at night, yes, but during the day we have to go on the offensive." Bertrand stopped at the far end of the table and turned to face everyone. "Don't you see? We have the advantage because we fight both day and night. They desperately need their Daylight Brigade to protect them during the day, but if we can get the word out, if more people revolt like they did today at McDonalds, then the Daylight Brigade will be exposed. Once they lose control it'll be easy to get the rippers simply by pulling them out into the sunlight."
"ALL RIGHT!" Emile's shout startled several of the others. "What? I just like that kinda talk. I never thought of it that way, but Bert's right, we can beat them easy."
"It won't be easy," said Joyce. "Basement–to-basement searches are going to be dangerous and time consuming, and first we have to take care of this Daylight Brigade."
"But it's doable." Emile looked around for others for confirmation. "We can beat these guys."
"We can." Bertrand continued his pace down the opposite side of the table, behind all the chairs. "But first we need to save lives. I think their whole plan—and it's clearly been well thought out—has been designed around numbers. Think a
bout it: who did they turn first? Government, media and cops, maybe the army too, who knows? This gives them control of the message, gives them the ability to convince everyone that it's all okay. Damn, I should've known this months ago after you first told me to buy a gun." He pointed to Gonsalves. "But I just couldn't believe that blood drinking murderers were walking around at night, much less that the government, TV news and cops were covering for them. It's like I had to go through the stages of grief only now it's the stages of belief. First I was in denial, then I was into bargaining—like maybe this would all go away if I ignored it."
"What stage are you at now?" Joyce, looked over her shoulder and up at him as he passed behind her chair.
"I'm angry. People are going to die tonight all over Chicago. Hell, all over the world maybe, and we can't save them. But that's what I mean: numbers. Their boss, who calls himself Vlad the Scourge, is trying to flip things around by making more people rippers than not. Their plan is to take over so irrevocably that we can't use the day to our advantage because there simply aren't enough of us."
"Okay," said Barry. "I get that, but don't you think we need to organize fall-back positions? I tell you, the place I've got is just perfect."
"Please." Father Alvarez waved Bertrand to a chair on his right before turning back to Barry. "Tell us of your fortress."
Barry looked up and down the table. "I'm a contractor and my specialty is student residences."
Bertrand nodded. So that explained the hardened muscles and the weathered skin. This man was used to life outdoors and around heavy equipment. Bert could easily imagine the hardhat over the bald head.
"A year ago I got a contract to build a residence for a little college up in Canada—they call them community colleges 'cause they're not really universities. Anyway, I guess I must've figured out about the vampires before the rest of you, 'cause I was having trouble getting crew, and I didn't like what the guys I did get were telling me. Most of them would only come up if they could bring their families.
The 1000 Souls (Book 1): Apocalypse Revolution Page 17
