"Then I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit." He made the sign of the cross over the teen.
Ted looked up. "Father, I told you I'm not even Catholic."
"God will know his own. Go in peace."
Ted turned to Bertrand. "Dude, Mister, please. I can see you're their leader and we're like the same age aren't we?"
"I'm a bit older," said Bertrand. "I'm a couple of years out of college."
"But close enough, man. We've both got our whole lives ahead of us. Please, please cover the window. My eyes are burning already. Please don't kill me."
"I'm not killing you." Bertrand stood and walked over to the window as he spoke. "Your mom killed you the night she made you drink infected blood. There was no turning back from that moment, and no hope but to kill yourself."
"Maybe I could drink animal blood or something?"
"Can you?"
Ted shook his head and stared into his lap and closed his eyes. "I don't know. No one does so I guess maybe not, or maybe it's not as good or something."
"If you could drink a cow's blood then maybe we could do something for you, but you and your friends have put us in the middle of a war."
The sun was above the horizon now, and the first orange rays breached the glass to shine on Ted. The four men waited in silence.
"My eyes are burning." Ted took deep breaths, his eyes now squeezed shut. "I hope you're right, Father. I hope I'm forgiven, man. Aw fuck this hurts!"
Ted rocked back and forth, swearing and cursing.
Father Alvarez looked over at Bertrand. "I think you should open the door," he said.
"No!" shouted Ted. "I think I can hold on if I just don't open my eyes."
Bertrand opened the door and stood aside to allow sunlight to flood the garage.
Ted convulsed, blood hemorrhaging out of his nose. The chair rattled on the floor and would have tipped but Alvarez caught it, turning Ted to face the sun. The convulsions lasted for nearly a minute. Finally Ted threw his head back with one last gasp, his eyes going to the rafters of the garage before his head slumped forward, only the ropes around his chest preventing him from falling from the chair.
They'd stared at him for a full minute, Bertrand wondering if this would be added to his murder charges. Finally Emile broke their silence.
"That is just too freaky."
They laid him out in the backyard of Bobs's house, careful not to touch his blood.
Twenty-Two - The World Falls Apart
Bobs and Terrance were already on the front lawn inspecting the bodies of the rippers with crossbows at the ready. She barely reached his shoulder in height, and yet there was something deferential about his posture that made it obvious to Bertrand that she was in charge. Despite being blonde and petite, there was something coiled in her stance, like a puma ready to charge. She looked up when Bertrand came around the corner with his Glock ready but pointed at the ground.
"Whatsup," she said. "That was some nice work last night, especially sending the fat guy around the car to flank them. You guys are good."
Emile heard this but it just made him laugh. "Wow, you are one hell of a pistol little lady. We heard from the kid about the community center night before last. Sounds like you did some good work yourself."
If she took pride in the compliment, it didn't show, because she still looked left and right, checking bodies and assessing the surroundings before she let her crossbow point to the grass. Terrance, gangly and still pimpled despite being near the end of his teens, stayed a step behind her as she turned to Bertrand.
"So what's your story?" she asked. "Like, what brought you out hunting in the middle of the night?"
"Just as you said—hunting." Bertrand put his Glock in his holster. "We're with the crowd at St. Mike's, but I couldn't sleep, so I decided to go out and see if we could save anyone from the rippers."
"I like that you call them Rippers. Hey, St. Mike's?" Her eyes went wide. "Was that Father Alvarez with you? He helped me bury mom and dad. He didn't buy it, did he?"
"He's saying a prayer over Ted's body out back. You know him, then?"
"My folks were regulars at St. Mike's until Wormison and his buddies offed them." She turned and walked over to the body of Harrison and kicked it hard in the gut and carefully and deliberately spat on his corpse. She turned back to Bertrand.
"I promised my mom and dad in my prayers that I would do that. I doubt it would make mom feel any better in heaven, but dad would sure be happy."
She showed no emotion, reporting this to Bertrand as if commenting on the price of gas or the chance for rain. Was she in shock? Was she too numb to grieve? Bertrand decided that she needed help that he was unqualified to give. Maybe that flower shop lady, Helen, could talk to her and draw out something other than clipped reports.
"We're heading back to St. Mike's," said Bertrand. "And there's a whole community there set up for defense."
She snorted, throwing Bertrand for a complete loop. "Defense?" she said. "St. Mike's is about as defendable as a goldfish bowl, unless you want to brick in those stained glass windows. Otherwise a few rocks and a Molotov cocktail or two on those nice wooden pews and everybody'll be outside in the middle of the night, or dying of smoke inhalation. Besides, now that I've lost the community center, St. Mike's'll be a magnet for action in the next couple of weeks. Its only good will be for luring vampires in and blowing it up once they're inside."
Emile started laughing, unable to contain himself, shaking his head in disbelief. "My God, you're something. And you're absolutely right."
"Well there's a lot of people there who are depending on us," said Bertrand. "So we're headed back."
Father Alvarez came around the corner, wiping dirt from his hands, his M-16 slung over his shoulder. When he saw Bobs he smiled. "Roberta, I didn't recognize you last night, but when Ted mentioned your named I guessed it was you. I'm glad to see you well."
"I'd be dead or worse if it wasn't for you, Father." She looked at Bertrand for a moment, sizing him up, judging him. "This guy tells me you got a bunch of hold-outs at the church, but I gotta tell you, Father, it'll be a tough go to defend that place in the long run."
Father Alvarez spread his hands. "I do what I can and the rest is up to God."
Bobs nodded, looking from Bertrand to Alvarez. She was about to make a decision, and Bertrand didn't speak because he wanted her to make her own choice, decide her own future. It wasn't like he could promise her a safer world.
"You know what? I think Terry and I will join you guys at the church, but I'm gonna bring my people from the community center, and Father, I'm going organize the defense. I got us out of that community center without losing one person."
"From what I have heard so far," said Alvarez, "it was truly a miracle."
She shook her head. "Just had to see what was coming and plan for it. I can do something with that bell tower on the church, but a sniper or two won't be enough. We're gonna need some concrete barriers and a bulldozer."
*
The story came out in bits and pieces over breakfast. Her father had been with the National Guard in Desert Storm, but after Bobs was born, he'd become an investment adviser. Her mother was a high school teacher, but Bobs had taken after her father in politics and interest so much that her mother had always joked that Bobs was the son her husband had always wanted.
She had completed her first year in history but hadn't returned to DePaul after her parents had died.
"I was gonna flunk out anyway," she said between forkfuls of scrambled eggs in the basement of St. Mike's. "The professors are all commie wimps who'd rather talk about socioeconomic history than battles and bombs."
Ever since seeing the movie Enemy at the Gates, she'd been fascinated by the battle of Stalingrad. "If only Hitler had listen to von Manstein and let the 6th army break out right at the beginning when they were first encircled, the whole history of the world would be different."
"Then it'
s a good thing he didn't listen." Helen fussed around their table in the basement of the church, pouring more coffee and making sure everyone had enough to eat.
"What?" Bobs looked up with a frown. "Oh yeah. I just hate it when a battle is lost that could've been won. Take the church here: you guys are just hiding in it at night, but what you really need to do is go out during the day on search-and-destroy missions. We have to make the whole neighborhood a no-go for the rippers."
She had taken to Bertrand's name for them because, as she said, "Vampires can be sexy. There's nothing sexy about these assholes."
Joyce on the other hand was furious with Bertrand. "How could you go out there without me and Jeff? We were worried sick when we woke up and found you guys gone."
Explanations about insomnia and a desire to do something didn't wash.
"Next time you frigging wake me. I thought we were a team, the three of us." She gestured in Jeff's direction, and Bertrand remembered that without them he would've been Malcolm's dinner.
Helen, the flower shop lady, joined them at the table with a plate of eggs for herself. "You and Emile should get some sleep somewhere safe. That was good work you did last night, but an internet hero needs to be ready for every night."
"Internet hero?"
Jeff sat across from Bertrand with an iPad. "Yup." He turned it to Bertrand, who hadn't finished his toast. "That was how we first figured out where you were and that you were alive. As soon as the power came on this morning this went totally viral."
A grainy image—a video camera working at the edge of its ability to resolve an image in low light—showed Harrison and Ted and their other associate threatening Bobs and Terry with the Molotov cocktails. The cocktail that Harrison broke across the hood of the car provided the light for the shoot out, and the camera zoomed in on Bertrand ordering the attack while the rippers were still unaware of the threat.
"Who shot this?" asked Bertrand.
Bobs had stood to watch over his shoulder. "Hey, that's gotta be from my neighbor across the street's house, Mr. Guillard. I thought he bought it a couple of nights ago, but it looks like he's hiding out in the one house on the street nobody's going to look for him, because it's a burnt shell. Smart. I wonder where he's hanging during the day, 'cause it's gotta be somewhere with power."
"So this is up on YouTube?" asked Bertrand.
"Oh yeah." Jeff slid back the tablet to his side of the table. "That's not all. Someone from that Erics crowd videotaped you at McDonalds yesterday too, and they put that all over the place. Both vids have had millions of hits before YouTube. This thing is being shared all over the world by the supporters of your maybe-crazy friends the Erics."
"He's bigger than I thought. I just figured he had a couple of dozen followers, nothing like what we saw yesterday." Bertrand reached for the tablet. "Gimme that. I need to check my e-mail."
Helen pushed the tablet back at Jeff. "Later my internet sensation," she said to Bertrand. "You and Emile and these two kids need to get some sleep."
Weariness suddenly did take hold, but Bertrand knew that the church would not be peaceful today, and he wanted security after last night's danger. He wanted a bunker.
"She's right. I'm going back to Nolan's to recharge my batteries."
Joyce nodded. "Fine. We'll come with you and keep watch for the cops. After yesterday you're going to attract a lot of heat."
*
Hushed voices were still loud enough to wake Bertrand. They spoke with excitement, horror and amazement. Bertrand wanted to curl down in the sleeping bag but he opened his eyes, trying to understand why people had entered his house. It wasn't his parents' voices. These were strangers to him, until he recognized Joyce. Bertrand's dangerous new world rapidly replaced the safe world of only a few months ago, and he sat up quickly to determine where he had gone to ground.
A snore from the couch parallel to his and only a few feet away helped his memory. He and Emile were in the bomb shelter at Nolan's, but they had left the big door open a crack, since it was daytime and several others were out in there doing—what? Bertrand rose quietly, careful not to disturb Emile, and groped at the end table near his feet until he found his Glock, then pulled the big vault door open as little as possible. He squeezed through and into the basement, but it was empty and dim, the light from the high windows suggesting late afternoon. He strapped on the gun.
The voices floated down the basement stairs from the dining room above.
Several people looked up when the basement door creaked as Bertrand reached the main floor. Jeff sat at the big dining-room table with his laptop—several people gathered around him, including Joyce sitting close on his right. The detective, Mike Sinclair, and his fellow ex-cops, Simon Gonsalves and Julia Chen, were on his left.
"Bert, you gotta see this." Joyce stood to make room for him, her jaw now clamped shut, a sign Bertrand had learned was the closest she ever came to intense emotion.
"What?"
"The end of the world." Jeff turned the laptop toward him but kept one hand on the track pad.
A video showed a nighttime riot in front of Buckingham palace. Crowds climbed the fence and the gate, some continuing to attack even after being shot; riot police were totally overwhelmed and beaten down. Another video showed a couple captured after a foot chase—still in England judging by all the cars with the drivers' seat on the left, skewed and abandoned on the streets. Several rippers pinned the couple down, one man wielding a long hunting knife with the proficiency of practice, cutting neatly into the jugular and clamping his mouth over the flow, quickly trading places with others to give them a taste.
"So it's happening there too." Bertrand sat back, his eyes turning to the polished wood of the tabletop rather than watching the couple die, but their screams still reached his ears from half a world away.
"Not just there." Jeff took them to websites of the Hindustan Times in India, where English-language articles spoke of a new plague that had swept the country, leaving bloodless corpses in the streets. An editorial begged people to donate blood to help with the epidemic, but Jeff switched to anti-government websites that showed what was really going on: a bulldozer shoved a massive pile of bodies into a crater-like landfill, the guerrilla videographer climbing up into a tree to give the viewers a sense of the depth of the hole.
"There's got to be ten thousand bodies there." Bertrand couldn't believe the scale of what he was seeing. He'd known it was national, had guessed it was international, but this was beyond his worst nightmare.
"I've been at this all day." Jeff clicked through graphic images from website to website. "It always starts the way it started here: they go for the government, the cops and the media first. They get them on board and keep things going as long as possible, as if everything's cool, but the bloggers and the tweeps start to get the word out. But the government and the ISPs shut them down, so for a few weeks everything seems like it's getting back to normal. Then the social media gets more insistent and it becomes like a game of whack-a-mole. People put the word out, the ISP pulls them down, but the same video footage or whatever keeps popping up elsewhere. That's when the governments begin the power shutdown's—to totally hammer down communication. But I think the rippers maybe need the power too, so they let it come up every now and then, but as far as I can tell, certainly in the middle-east and Africa, it eventually goes down and stays down."
"What's going on in Africa?" asked Bertrand.
"Same as everywhere, but it's become a hole for information. I can't find an updated website that's anything less than two weeks old. China's harder to figure, but there's a few rogue images like you saw from England. No need to show you 'cause it's more of the same."
The basement door creaked open and Emile stood at the top of the stairs rubbing sleep from his eyes and yawning, looking for all the world like a giant little boy waking from a nap. "Sounds like the world truly has gone to hell this time." He turned to the fridge in the kitchen. "Anyone else need a beer?"
Jeff spoke up first. "What the hell. I'll have one. Bert?"
"Sure. I have a feeling I won't being seeing my doctor again for a while, so I don't have to worry about a lecture anyway."
Sinclair got up and walked over to look out the sliding glass doors into Nolan's little backyard. He still wore the rumpled suit he'd been wearing the night he knocked on the front door to announce that Bertrand was wanted for murder.
"Is there anywhere in the world you don't think this is happening," he asked without looking back. It was a plea.
"Nowhere." Jeff opened his beer and leaned back from the laptop. "I mean I can't read anything other than English, but the videos that people upload speak for themselves. We're pretty fucked."
"But one guy couldn't do all this then." Bertrand also sat back trying to find a vent for his frustration. "If they really do have to infect people by getting them to drink infected blood, then it can't be happening all over the world at once unless there are thousands of rippers acting in concert."
"I think there must be," said Jeff. "There're weird twitter posts that are clearly about killing people and drinking blood, but I can't find anything like, well, a command structure. Like someone giving orders."
"Well keep looking. I'm going upstairs to check my e-mail and see what Erics has to say."
He headed for Nolan's office with his beer, relishing the cold fluid even though it was on an empty stomach. He sat at the solid desk, pondering Thomas Nolan's life while the man's twenty-first century Mac booted. What man who had seen so clearly what was going on have been so oblivious to the implications? What kind of man could think a bunker could protect him from the disaster that only he saw happening? Perhaps the same man who didn't bother to change the seventies decor in the basement even as he adopted modern tech.
To Bertrand's amazement, he still received spam, but most of it went straight to the junk folder, so it wasn't hard to find several e-mails from Erics.
The 1000 Souls (Book 1): Apocalypse Revolution Page 20
