"I can choose not to kill. I can choose to die."
His hand went for his Glock, but Vlad moved faster, yanking the gun from the holster before Bertrand could turn it on himself and pull the trigger. The monster returned to his seat and again studied Bertrand with deep interest.
"Truly, I have never seen anyone fight the union so well. You are a remarkable man and you will be an incredibly strong hybrid once the conversion is complete. I think I shall name you Vlad the Incredible. That is a name worthy of you, and men will cringe to hear your name."
"Why?" Bertrand's body numbed now, a buzz as if he had consumed a six pack of beer in a hurry. "Why are you doing this?"
"To you?"
"To humanity. To civilization. Why are you the Scourge?"
"Do you not listen to your own governments? You are destroying all that God created. For many years I thought I was too late, for I didn't understand nuclear weapons until far into the sixties, and then all I could do was move deep into Africa, hoping to be far from the fallout of nuclear war. I had failed to see far enough ahead, to understand that I'd been given this affliction by God so that I could be his vengeance. If a global nuclear war had occurred, the resulting radiation would surely have been lethal to me."
"But it didn't happen." Bertrand became aware of a hum that had nothing to do with his body—an engine hum, like a large motor, but muffled.
"It hasn't happened yet." Vlad held up one gloved finger, waving it at Bertrand as he lectured. "Your scientists have warned of dangerous population growth for years. It was time to dramatically reverse the trend."
"But they were wrong!" shouted Bertrand. "They said widespread famine by the year 2000, but they didn't foresee increased crop yields. India exports food for God's sake."
"I have lived many centuries. War always comes from too many people. In time you will come to see my wisdom. Even now I have destroyed many nuclear weapons. When I am complete, they will be gone, and so will the science that allowed them to exist. I will make the planet once again into a green place."
"You're making it into a hell that will wipe humanity from the face of the earth."
"In time humans will cease to resist and will flock to my protection. We hybrids will care for you and restrict your growth. We will control all, and you will live simply as you once did, on farms that are worked with hands rather than machines. A little blood each month will be an cheap price to pay for safety and security."
"We'll be slaves."
"Not you. You will be a master."
Bertrand wanted to feel despair but some other drug had been released, a numbing drug, one that weighted on his arms and legs, but already a notion of hunger glowed in his stomach, and not a natural hunger.
"My friends will be here soon. They'll kill us both. I still win."
"Your friends will be busy for many hours yet, and I assure you that these doors are strong. I have also prepared a collapse in the cavern that will protect us. My good man, my new Vlad, I have been at war since I was born. Do you not understand that I would never allow myself to be trapped so? There is another exit." He pointed to a man-sized tunnel to the left of his desk, a tunnel that hadn't been in frame on the security camera. "In a few hours when the sun has vanished, you and I will leave your friends to celebrate their victory of the day. Tonight we will bring them true war, and you will have your first feed."
Weariness pressed on Bertrand's, not the exhaustion of life but of death, an exhaustion so complete that it could not be denied. Vlad nodded, clearly understanding and knowing the stages.
"When you wake you will be hungry." Vlad turned in his chair to face his computer. "Then you will be ready to accept your new self."
Bertrand resisted sleeping, but he was more tired than he had ever been in his life.
*
The hunger rose with a vengeance—a gnawing in his stomach that felt as if he were eating himself from the inside out. Bertrand sat up, the burning accelerating to radiate out to his whole body. Vlad still sat at his computer watching the security cameras, but he must have been aware of a change in Bertrand, for he swiveled the chair to again face him.
"You can feed on Nicholas first," he said gently. "It will not give you the true rewards of living blood, but there is enough there to quell the pain until nightfall, which is soon."
It was pain. As if the parasites had heard his words, the gnawing clenched and his stomach didn't just demand, it hurt with a vicious pain.
"Your army has been wonderful." Vlad clicked through security cameras, sitting aside so that Bertrand could see people celebrating and high-fiving. They controlled the mountain. Where was Joyce? Where was Jeff? Bertrand didn't want them to see him like this, a ravenous evil monster. He heard nothing through his walkie and looked down to see if it was on. The battery was dead.
"You have no choice now." Vlad pointed to Nicholas's body. "There is good blood still there. Use the knife to cut down to his heart. Your friends are coming back to the cavern so I will need to detonate my charges. Fear not, this room and my escape route are carefully reinforced. We will be safe."
Joyce would die. Bertrand knew she would come looking for him and thousands of tons of rock would be brought down on her head. His body was willing to respond to commands now and he crawled toward Nicholas.
Vlad gave a pained smile and turned away. "Even you must give in to the demands of the demons inside you. That is what I always believed possessed me until modern science spoke otherwise, yet what is a demon but something that takes you over and twists your will to its needs? And surely these parasites are an affliction from hell."
He turned his back on Bertrand and concentrated on the computer.
Bertrand—still on hands and knees—reached the corpse. It smelled wet and fresh and good ... if he could just dig in far enough to find blood, even coagulated, chewy blood.
But he could choose. He was strong. His soul was dense, denser than any soul in a millennia. He was sure. He was now a believer. Bertrand crawled around Nicholas, ignoring the demands on his stomach, a craving unlike anything he had ever known. Was this what a heroin addict felt? Was it worse? His arms and legs fought him, trying to turn him back to Nicholas but he continued toward the door and his Winchester. His hand closed around the pistol grip.
He turned to face Vlad, who still face his desk.
Bertrand's body begged him to feed. He pulled the trigger and the gunshot slammed his ears. The shot went through the chair and shoved Vlad against the desk.
The ripper turned, his face a mixture of shock and admiration.
Bertrand pumped in another shotgun shell.
"You are brave." Vlad stood, a dark figure somehow taller and more powerful than his short stature should allow, a gory exit wound on his lower left abdomen. "But this changes—"
Bertrand fired again, hitting him in the chest. He racked the slide and fired again, catching his shoulder and again hitting him in the chest. He pumped the slide a final time but the gun clicked empty.
Vlad had fallen onto his back by his chair and stopped moving.
But Bertrand knew this wasn't over. This was a very old ripper, one the parasites could repair. He stood—debating how to finish this forever—but he was distracted by pounding on the outer door.
Bertrand hurried to the computer, resisting all desire to bend and suck the blood from Vlad's wounds. The security image showed Jeffery and Joyce leading a large armed group into the cavern. Barry and Martin already pounded on the outer door, their figures distorted by the wide angle. Vlad must've shot the bolts to lock the door while Bertrand was unconscious.
Bertrand's body fought every command, but he retained control through heroic effort. He went through the opening in the rock and found another room and the source of the engine noise. An industrial generator, large and yellow, roared away. Spare propane canisters, some only as big as barbecue tanks, were stacked near it. An exhaust tube ran up a tunnel that opened in the wall, one that Bertrand could access by a ladder
, but was so narrow he would have to crawl on his hands and knees to pass through. The escape route. Bertrand climbed on the ladder and looked into the tunnel. It ran straight and steep, and a dim orange light far up burned his eyes. Sunlight.
He hurried back to the other room to find that Vlad hadn't moved. Cut his head off? Blow his brains out? He searched frantically for his Glock. More pounding on the outer door. Bertrand rushed to open the inner door and go into the cramped security room. He could see them all out there now. One monitor showed Bobs outside the mountain organizing the former slaves onto buses, the setting sun throwing long shadows across the gravel. He wanted to hate her, but if he hadn't gone in and confronted Vlad they'd never have known about the escape tunnel. Vlad would have lived to fight another day.
When would the charges go off to bring down the cavern? There was no countdown anywhere. Had Vlad been lying? He doubted it, and he couldn't take the chance. He could open the door to tell them, but a new monster owned him and it demanded blood. He didn't dare open the outer door that they pounded on, didn't dare get close to a possible source of food for the monster. He had to get them out.
A microphone on the desk gave him the answer. He pushed a button on it and spoke.
"Joyce! Jeff! Everybody!" His voice came back to him through the door as a distinct boom, the voice of a god. "You've got to get out of there. It's a trap. There are charges on the pillars in the cavern that'll go off soon and make the ceiling collapse."
"Bert," shouted Joyce. "Are you in there? Bert, please open up."
Bertrand found himself unable to talk. He lusted for her in a way that was destructive, unnatural and evil. "I can't ... I can't." He fought tears and focused on the crushing pain from his gut to steady his voice. "Joyce. I'm dead. Okay? I'm totally dead, but I've killed Vlad. All that's left to do is burn our bodies to purge the parasites."
Joyce flew into a rage, hammering at the door and screaming.
Bertrand couldn't help it. He went and pressed his ear to the door to feel the pounding of her hands, the closest he would ever come again to her touch. The pounding stopped.
He went back to the microphone and saw Jeff and Barry holding Joyce back from the door.
He keyed the microphone. "You know I love you, but I can't be with you now. I'm really sorry that I'll miss our Thanksgiving date, but you have to get out of here before the charges go off. Please go."
Jeff called out. "You sure there's nothing we can do? Dude, be straight with us. Are you ripper?"
"Vlad forced blood into my mouth. I've gone through the change. I'm dead. Please, go. Barry, please take everyone to your fortress in Canada. This is going to get much worse before it gets better. Go quickly. There's nothing more you can do here and there are going to be explosions. You have to get out. I'm going to detonate a propane canister in here to burn Vlad." Bertrand found talking exhausting. He found everything exhausting except for his desire to open that door and attack. He was so hungry.
"I'll never murder for blood!" he screamed, more to his stomach than his friends. "RUN! Get out of the mountain! I'm done!"
He turned away but a lump on the desk caught his attention. The hand grenade sat there like an invitation, one he hadn't noticed before. That must be what Bobs had put down. If only he had paid attention, had noticed it before, he would have opened the door to Vlad's room and tossed it in first. It could have saved him.
A thought occurred to Bertrand: could the sun save him now? Could it burn the parasites from his body without killing him? How many were in his bloodstream at this moment, and would their mass deaths cause a stroke?
It was a faint hope but he clung to it. He watched his friends run from the cavern, and it ripped his heart that Joyce wept. So she did love him. It was a wonderful and terrible revelation, but it gave him strength. He took the grenade and walked into the inner room to find Vlad sitting up and blinking at him.
"The demons will heal." It was a guttural whisper.
Bertrand fought with his desires and walked into the generator room. He grabbed a barbecue propane tank and dragged it back into Vlad's room. The monster clearly couldn't move yet and watched with helpless interest.
"You would go to hell?" he whispered, his strength clearly not coming back very quickly.
"I am in hell." Bertrand opened the valve on the tank and let the propane gas flow.
"Burning is a horrible way for a hybrid to die." Vlad still did not look afraid, but his fragility gave Bertrand strength.
The mountain shook with explosions. Bertrand looked up at the computer in fear. The camera showed falling rock in the cavern before the camera was destroyed and the screen went to static. Did Joyce get out on time?
"All the scriptures say that those who kill themselves will go to hell." Vlad's voice was a bit stronger. "I believed you to be a holy man."
"I'm not killing myself. You did."
He held up the grenade so that Vlad could see it.
"So I go to meet God," said Vlad. He raised one hand. "Farewell."
"Fuck you."
Bertrand headed for the generator room and the escape tunnel, climbing the ladder quickly and squeezing into the tunnel. He found he could just get enough bend in his knees and elbows to crawl up the tunnel. It was a struggle, and the last orange light of the sun burned his eyes but he kept going, consuming the pain, paying for misjudging Bobs, for thinking he could save the world that he had known.
A shuffle behind caught his attention and he looked down between his legs. A head blocked some of the light from the generator room. Vlad was coming after him.
Bertrand looked up toward the sun and said his goodbye.
He pulled the pin on the grenade and rolled it down the steep slope of the tunnel. The stench of propane told him what would happen next, but still he turned and made one last desperate attempt to climb.
The explosion slammed his ears and the fire baked his feet.
He screamed and climbed, the pain in his legs an agony he couldn't endure.
But he didn't die. He continued to climb. Part of the little tunnel collapsed, and he had to squeeze past rock that was unforgiving. If he hadn't lost so much weight over the summer he would've been trapped there for eternity.
The air freshened, and at last he spilled out of the hole and sprawled on the mountainside, his whole body trembling with reaction as the final orange rays seared into his brain. It was the last time Bertrand would ever see the sun, and it vanished before it could cleanse.
Thirty-Five - Barry's Tower
Summer brought thunderstorms that swept in from the west and poured rain on to Barry St. John's tower in the woods, deep in Canada. Summer also brought new life. Joyce gave birth the same way she fought, with focus and anger and short sharp commands to those around her: "Water. Let go of me. Now! Here comes the baby now!"
There was a doctor at the tower, but she was short on anesthetic and was not a surgeon, so she didn't dare a cesarean when one wasn't required.
Weeks later, during the oppressive heat that fed a new thunderstorm, Jeff found Joyce a room on the third floor where the windows could open, and he fixed bars on the outside to ensure rippers couldn't get in to attack, although there had been few this way since the daytime raids Barry had led on the nearby town of Atherly during the spring, dragging them from the basements into the sun. Their detachment of Bertrand's Army now lived here, but Bobs had taken her people back to Chicago. The Erics had dissolved to go and preach their new religion far and wide.
Joyce nursed her daughter as the lightning flashed, the lights of the room off so that they could drift to sleep together, but Joyce was restless tonight, so she sat propped up in her bed and watched the lightning strike closer with each bolt, illuminating the clouds that swept in on them.
She drifted in and out of sleep. A flash silhouetted a human figure, a ripper that clung to the bars of the window, and Joyce opened her mouth to scream for Jeff. Her hand sought the Uzi on the bedside table, but her daughter nursed on, unaware
of her mother's panic.
"It's me." The hoarse voice did sound like Bertrand. It had an alien quality to it, as if the vocal chords were no longer used to functioning, yet something struck to the core of Joyce's heart. This was her dead hero.
"Bert! Jesus Christ you scared me. Go to the door and Jeff'll let you in. I'll call him." But she knew this was not going to happen as much as she wanted him to be alive.
"Is she mine?"
Joyce nodded and wept. "Yes. I named her Margaret after my mother. Bert, I wish you could see her. She's so beautiful."
"Like her mother." But the voice held no emotion.
"Bert. Is it really you?"
"It's me. You won't see me again, but I'll be around. I'll watch over you and I'll watch over her and her children. I'll be your holy ghost."
There was an edge of madness.
"Isn't there anything we can do?"
A slam of lightning outlined a skeletal frame. It was not the chubby Bertrand she had first met at the gym, but an emaciated Bertrand.
"Live. Never give into the rippers. Never be their slaves."
"Never." Joyce wanted to say more, to tell him how much she loved him, but a flash of lightning showed that he was gone.
She wept and nursed and slipped into sleep. In the morning, Jeff told her it must've been a nightmare, but Joyce knew the truth, and she never stopped looking out for him at night whenever the weather was warm and restless.
*
Bertrand headed south down the highway, heading for the bridge over the Mattagami River gorge on his way to Chicago. He'd searched far and wide around St. John's tower, but the rippers had been eradicated. Joyce would be safe for the summer and the winter. He needed sustenance, and the only food he allowed himself was the blood of rippers. It was a starvation diet, for most of the blood was useless to him, but it dimmed the pain in his belly. Chicago still had a lot of rippers in its far-flung suburbs, so he would spend the winter there, cleansing his city. If his house still stood—his parents' house—he would live in the basement during the day. He was the monster now, but not a monster for humans to fear. Just rippers.
The 1000 Souls (Book 1): Apocalypse Revolution Page 32
