06 Mar Tender Shepherd

Subject Two One Eight

“Write. Anything you can remember. Anything that comes to mind.”

I remember looking up from the thick orange gloves covering my hands. Staring into the dark eye holes of his mask. But in truth, when he slid the pen across the table, I didn’t even know what it was. Couldn’t form words. Couldn’t think. Only moan in response. Nothing but garbled noises.

He tapped a fingertip against the table, beside the object. “Pen.”

“Paaughn,” I moaned. Without meaning. Without understanding. Merely mimicking the sounds he made.

“Do you know what a pen is for?” His head tipped to the side. His mask locked in a vacant, placid smile.

Jaw gaping, my gaze dropped to the table. To his tapping finger. Drawn by the noise, the movement. “P-ahhhn.”

“Yes. Pen.” With a flick of his fingers he rolled the pen closer.

I remember lunging at it with both hands. Slamming my face against the table. Biting at it through my face shield. Reacting out of instinct alone. Bite. But then something happened. I felt it. The glass against my face. It’s cold smooth surface on my chin and tongue. It startled me, broke through the fog choking my mind, and I sat up. “Ugh…”

The pale, smiling mask sat there, floating over the table, almost indistinguishable from the wall behind. Betrayed only by the blush on its cheeks. Its black eyes and smile. Silent. Watching.

Slowly, my hands lifted to my face. Touched the invisible barrier staying my bite, then crept up over my head. “Pugh-in?” I blinked at the mask, the vaguest hint of an idea coalescing in the recesses of my vacant mind. An association. My hands slid down the face shield. Fell back to the table beside the pen. The creature sitting across from me, the thing I was wearing, the pen, were all somehow connected.

With all the dexterity of a pregnant hippo, I flicked the pen back across the table.

The mask nodded. “Good.” His blue fingers gripped the pen as if it were made of glass. He took it in his fist and pressed his thumb against the end. His eyes fixed on me. The click drew my attention at once, but this time I didn’t lunge. “Very good.” He pressed the tip to a pad of paper, and drew a thin blue line across the page. “Do you know what it says?”

I didn’t have a clue. Didn’t even understand the noises he made had meaning. And I don’t think he really expected I would. But what I do remember is the way he leaned forward, turned the pad around, and slid it into my hands. The tremble in his voice when he said, “It says, ‘you are beautiful.’”

Rene

Two One Eight. It watches me back out of the room, stares as I lay my palm against the door and press it closed. Its eyes, clearer than before. More focused. The lock clicks. My hand slips from the handle, and a low purr draws my gaze to the floor.

Dorian. Lifting the mask from my face, I bend down and stroke her soft head. “True cognition.” She turns, arches her back against my gloved fingers, and raises her tail. “Indeed. This calls for a celebration.”

A rare occurrence. There hasn’t been much to celebrate in some time. I glance down the hallway, to the cooler, and groan. “Though, I regret to say, there’s not much left to celebrate with.”

Dorian meows and spins, recapturing my touch with her head.

A smile curls the corners of my mouth. “Not to worry, My Dear. There’s some kibble left. And besides, it’s Thursday.” Pulling back my sleeve, I glance down at my watch. Two twenty-eight. “Hmm, and it seems Jarl will be here any moment.” Rising to my feet, I strip the gloves from my hands and toss them into the trashcan beside the door. In two minutes, to be precise. Enough time, perhaps, to begin rehydrating some rations.

Dorian at my heels, I pull the mask off the top of my head, tuck it under my arm, and hurry down the corridor. Jarl’s not particularly stimulating company, but generally reliable, and quite resourceful. In truth, amazingly so. Somehow, he and his merry band of misfits always manage to fill even my most extraordinary requests. Centrifuges, incubators, items rarer than gold these days. And Jarl not only procures them, but mostly in working order. Not to mention fuel for the generator, and, of course, my more… exclusive needs. Not that he provides all this for free, you understand. My services are rarer still, and he has desperate need of my particular skills.

A crackle on the intercom quickens my pace. “Rene? You there?”

I reach the control monitor just in time to catch one of his lackies, a rather large man with an almost childlike countenance, drop his pack on the ground. A man whose face seems familiar somehow, though I can’t quite place him. “Indeed,” I call into the microphone. “I trust you have my shipment well in hand?”

Jarl stretches out his arm and snaps his fingers. The man behind reaches into his pack, pulls out a little red bag, and slaps it in Jarl’s hand. Jarl holds it up over his head. “Type O.”

Excellent. Not bothering to sit, I drop the mask on the table, reach over, turn off the gate, and hit the intercom. “You’re clear to enter.”

Jarl sticks his key in the lock, pushes the gate open, and one by one, his men enter the courtyard. I watch them carefully. Searching for any sign of infection. A limp. A shuffle. A slump. But today, the only oddity is the number he brought with him. Three pack men, heavily laden, and four guards.

The last man backs through the gate, rifle ready, as if they were being followed.  My eyes narrow. I watch Jarl close the gate, remove his key from the lock and wave. I turn the power back on, but even through the monitor I can see his shoulders relax. The way his whole team seems to sigh.

My mistress jumps up on the table. Rubs against my hand.

“Quite so, My Dear. They do seem a bit agitated,” I whisper, then hit the intercom. “Proceed.” It seems someone has a tale to tell.

Jarl

Twitch’s jumpy. Keeps eyin’ a pile of twisted, rebar just past the fence. “They’re close.”

I scan the rubble, wave the mules to the door, and signal for the others to fall back and cover our ass. But I don’t see ‘em. Never do. Not until they swarm. But I smell them. The stink of rotten flesh. “Where?”

His eyes never leave the rebar, even when his rifle swings back to that wrecked high-rise we had to crawl through. “There.”

I catch… somethin’ moving in the shadows. Maybe the dim glow of an eye. So quick I’m not sure I didn’t imagine it. But Twitch? Twitch’s got some creepy ass sixth sense ‘bout this shit. He says they’re there, they’re there. “How many?”

He shakes his head, eyes dancin’ all over the horizon. “Dunno. A lot.”

Shit. “It’s gotta be the blood.” I hock a loogie at a smashed cinderblock. Damn corpses can smell the shit even through the bags. Drives ‘em crazy. And this time, we brought the mother load. Don’t know if they’ll charge the fence. Don’t know if it’s hot enough to fry ‘em all if they do. But I don’t like sittin’ out here in the open with my ass hangin’ out. “Rene’s sure takin’ his sweet time.”

“They won’t come inside, will they?” Goddamned Kid, sounds like he’s ‘bout to piss himself.

Rachet tosses me a cold stare. Said the Kid didn’t have the balls for this when I took him on.

“I don’t give a fuck what he says. There ain’t no way he was at Farmer’s Milk. Doc only had five doses. Five.” He held up his hand, folded down a finger for each man bitten in that battle: Seed, Moose, Xander, Candle, and Lars. “If that bite on his arm was legit, where’s his mark? I don’t see no skin melt, no bald patch, no dead eye, no nothin’.” He threw down the crankshaft he was working on. Poked me in the chest with his hammer. “If he’s bit, why ain’t he part of the hoard? And if he got the jab, how come he ain’t got no hoard sense?” When I didn’t answer, he wiped his brow dry on the back of his forearm, took the crankshaft, and tossed it back in the forge. “Kid’s full of shit.”

“What’s a matter, Kid,” Ratchet laughs. “You been jabbed. Ain’t like you’re gonna turn.”

Kid changes his grip on his rifle. “Yeah, but I don’t want my guts ripped out either.”

“None of us does, Kid.” I aim a kick at a shard of broken concrete, toss Ratchet a glare. It don’t matter if he’s lying. Kid’s here. We don’t need no pissing contest. Not here. “The fence is electrified. They touch it, they fry.” But I can feel ‘em. Watching. Waiting. “Stay calm, and keep your finger off that fuckin’ trigger.” Damned last thing we need is a dinner bell.

A loud clank just ‘bout sends me out of my skin. I jerk around just in time to watch Rene’s iron door swing in.

“Welcome.” Rene steps into the opening, bows, and waves us inside. “I trust your journey wasn’t overly taxing?” His voice flows like oil. Smooth. Silky.

“Got here, didn’ we?” I swallow, toss one last glance at the rubble, and follow the mules.

“Indeed.” He scans the top of the rubble pile surrounding his compound. Until the last of us stands in the lock. Then, and only then, he seals the outer door. “I’ve taken the liberty of preparing your usual accommodations.” He moves between us like a cat, barely stirrin’ the air when he makes his way to the inner door. “Will you be dining with us this evening?”

The Kid’s whole face ticks. “Us? I thought it was just you.”

Rene arches a single eyebrow, but it’s Twitch that answers. “He’s talking about his cat, Dorian.”

“I could be, or my test subjects.” Rene raises a hand to the lever beside the door. “If so, you’d likely be dinner. Not to fret, my good man.” He pulls the lever, and the inner door hisses open. “In this case…Twitch, was it? Is correct.” Again, Rene bows and motions us inside. “I believe you know where the cooler is, Jarl. Please attend to the blood before you settle in. We can go over inventory later.”

I nod at Twitch, tellin’ him to go ahead. “Damn lot of blood this time.” I give The Kid a pat on the shoulder when he passes. “Hope this ain’t a regular thing. All one type weren’t easy to come by.”

“Of that I’m all too keenly aware.” Rene’s dark eyes sparkle. “But let’s discuss over supper, shall we?”

I ain’t sure if it’s the tone of his voice, or because it’s the first time I’ve ever seen his face betray so much as a sniff of emotion, but somethin’ jerks me to a stop. “You got somethin’ new?”

This time, Rene smiles. Not a friendly smile. Not exactly. More like an imitation of a smile. The kind someone might give if they only read about them in a book or somethin’. He puts his finger to his lips, like he’s ‘bout to tell me a secret, then waves it back and forth. “Ah, ah, aah. You’ll spoil the surprise.” He lowers his arm and waves us through. “Supper will be served in one half hour. Secrets, must wait until dessert.”

Dinner with Dorian

Supper with Rene is… an experience. His complex, what’s left of the old hospital, the basement levels, ain’t big on frills. Peelin’ concrete walls. Broken white linoleum. White overhead lightin’. Only a few actually light. That’s pretty much the whole place in a nutshell. Secure, cold, musty, and cluttered. The only areas he seems to care ‘bout keepin’ clean and workin’ are the ones he does his research in, which don’t include the cafeteria. But the food’s good, for rations. Rice, noodles, mashed potatoes. More than any of us’s had in a long time.

I shovel another scoop of beans and rice on my plate, jam a spoonful in my mouth, and listen to the silent din of hungry men eatin’. A happy sound, broken only by another, Dorian’s purr.

“Jarl.” The smooth lifeless drone of Rene’s voice pulls my attention to the head of the table. To the pale figure perched in his chair, strokin’ his cat. Both sets of eyes locked on mine. “It’s been some time since I’d received any news. How fares your outpost?”

I swallow the food in my mouth. “It’s touch an’ go.” Take a sip of water to clear my throat. “The serum you gave us last time was a Godsend. But food’s been a problem since the hoard broke through the southern wall. We lost half our goats, most of our cattle, and we don’t got enough men left to push ‘em out.”

Rene’s face darkens. “Hmm… what are your current numbers?”

“Two hundred. ‘Bout six, counting women and children.”

Rene’s hand stills. Dorian falls silent. “I see.” He lifts his hands to his nose. Presses his fingertips together. “Your numbers are too few. Traditional monogamous mating habits, while noble, should be abandoned. Each of you should take three mates, men and women, to ensure genetic diversity.”

The sound of chewin’ stops. But I ain’t sure I heard him right. “Three…” I glance over at Ratchet, a bean rolls out his mouth, and I scratch behind my ear. “Is that a formal recommendation for the council?”

Rene shrugs and goes back to pettin’ Dorian. “Perhaps. I’ll make my decision before your departure.”

“Three wives?” The Kid barks. “Well, Hell, you got my vote.”

A few others lift their cups, but Rene’s face is like stone. “Do I now?” The men go quiet. Dorian lifts her chin. Without pullin’ his eyes off the Kid, Rene’s long fingers curl under her neck, and her purr comes back twice as loud. “This was once a great city. Filled with people beyond count. And it, but one of many. Humanity, numerous beyond your mind’s ability to conceive. Now, Jarl tells me you number around six hundred. But the hoard? The hoard covers this world like a shroud. Have you never asked how this came to be?”

The Kid swallows hard, but don’t talk. I can’t tell if he thinks Rene don’t want an answer, or if he’s frozen in place by his stare.

“Unintended consequences, my young friend,” Rene says at last. “Unintended consequences. Arrogance, coupled with desire, made all the more potent by partial knowledge. Their intentions were noble. To end suffering. To lengthen their days like an evening shadow. And so focused their efforts into a master passion. They sought to bend what is, without seeing that what can be seen, touched, tasted, and smelled is but one part of a far greater whole. And so unleashed the full majesty of their genius, only to doom themselves. You see, my friend, they knew in part, and they succeeded in part. They are indeed immortal, in body. For the dead cannot die. But that which their science denied, the spirit, the unseen realm science cannot touch, and yet the reality of which has been known to shamans and clergy throughout all the ages, their immortal shells no longer possess. For the spirit cannot dwell in what has already passed. And so they wander. Rotten husks. Animated by a construct of their own design, itself no longer of the material plane. And they, like it, driven only by program. The most primal need of the flesh, the need to feed, animated by the automaton they constructed. Dead, yet always hungry.”

In Rene’s voice, here, in this tomb of his, it’s the most disturbin’ history lesson I’ve ever heard, but Rene ain’t finished. Only stoppin’ to roll Dorian on her back and rub her belly. “That is a mistake I mean not to replicate. Yes, healthy genetics demand diversity, but the material is not the only consideration. One must-”

All a sudden, Dorian kicks Rene’s finger away, twists back on her feet, jumps down onto the floor, and marches out of the room, tail held high.

Rene laughs. “It seems my monologue has been preempted. Gentlemen, if you’re quite finished, I believe I promised secrets for dessert.”

Subject Two One Eight

Memories. Images. I don’t know that they qualify as thought, not in those early days. The hunger, I remember. That all consuming emptiness that demanded to be filled. I think that’s the only thing I remember from before. Before the white smile appeared in the darkness. Before it snapped its fingers, just out of reach, and when I didn’t lunge, brought me here.

The beginning of my long awakening.

He left me alone, always with some item. No, I don’t know how long it went on. There is no time without sky. Without the turn of the seasons. Without thought. But that time, the item he left, the pen, called to me. When I finally managed to grip it through the gloves of my suit, I remember pulling the tip along the paper, just like he did, but it’s the warmth I’ll always treasure. The tingles that danced along my spine when I made that first blue streak across the page. A sensation that grew with each scribble that followed. The deep gurgling coughs that rumbled from my chest. The laugh of the undead.

That’s when the door swung open. When the white smile appeared in the opening.

“Pe-hughn!”

I dropped the pen, slammed my open palm over the paper, crumpled it, and held up the wad. I didn’t understand why at the time, but looking back, I think even then, in that twilight world between living and dead, without thought, with only the vaguest stirrings of emotion, I longed for his approval. But Rene is… Rene.

He paused by the door, tipped his head to the side. “Ah, I see you’ve learned how to use the pen.”

Pen. My arms fell to the table. Pen. My hand opened, the wad in my hand fell to the table, and lurched at the small blue object. “Paughn.”

The face turned, glanced up at a small dark circle above the door, then sat down across from me at the table. “Would you be so kind as to show me what you’ve drawn?”

Noises without meaning. But when he stretched out his hand and tapped the table beside the wad, that I understood. Pen in hand, I pushed my crumpled masterpiece toward his open palm. “Pai-en.”

“Very nice!” The face beamed, just as it always did, but in that moment, something changed. I understood. Not the sounds themselves, but that the noises meant something. Like pen. The face never changed. But the tone of his voice, the feel of the noises, touched something deep inside the husk that I was. Ignited a warm spark.

He was pleased with me.

The spark caught fire. The pen smashed onto another sheet of paper. Another ragged line appeared on its surface. One I needed him to see. “Pe-en?”

“Extraordinary!”

Tingles tripped down my arms. Again the paper hit the table, but before I could make my mark, he jerked the page from my grasp. “Very good indeed, but let’s try something new.” He pulled the notepad over to his side of the table. “Let’s see what you make of this.” He produced another pen, drew a single curved line under two dark circles, and slid it back over.

I remember a vague sense of confusion. Wondering in my thoughtless, foggy way, how the face across the table now appeared on the page.

Jarl

It ain’t possible. I glance up from the paper, glare at Rene’s pale, gaunt face, then back at the paper. I know it happened. I saw it happen. Watched Rene take it from that… thing’s hand, walk out the door, and hand it to me.  I know what I saw, but it’s gotta be some kinda joke.  They’re nothin’ but mindless husks. Rotten meat brought to life by some twisted experiment gone wrong ages ago. They don’t think. They don’t got any sense at all. But I heard it say “Pen.” I watched it pick it up and draw exactly what Rene told it to. I couldn’t have, but I did.

Twitch flicks the paper. “It’s a trick.” But he don’t sound too sure.

“Not at all.” Rene steps over to the monitor, folds his arms over his chest and stares at the zombie on the screen. Watching it draw face after face. “This, Gentlemen, is what I wanted to show you. Your salvation.”

“Salvation?” He’s lost his damn mind. “Smart Hoardlings?” There ain’t hardly any of us left. They’re everywhere. Every building, every shadow. Immortal. Chop ‘em up an’ the pieces keep comin’. We’re hangin’ on by a thread, and only ‘cuz they ain’t got no sense. None. “Whatcha you gonna do next, huh? Make ‘em so they ain’t scared of the sun?”

Rene raises a finger. “Eventually, yes, that will happen.” The corner of his mouth curls. “Once enough of her cells regenerate.”

“What?” Regenerate. He said regenerate. I glance down at the paper. Up at the screen. “You shittin’ me?”

Rene laughs. “Hardly. You’re looking at a phoenix, my friends. Humanity, being reborn from the ashes before your eyes.”

“But…” They’re dead. Most don’t got hardly no meat left on ‘em. Some ain’t more than pieces tryin’ to bite anythin’ that gets close. Hands crawlin’ through the rubble. Heads. I don’t know what keeps ‘em goin’. “How?”

“Ah,” he sighs. “In terms possible for you to understand, I reprogramed the virus to do the opposite of what it’s been doing.”

“Virus?” I don’t get it. “You said it was a machine what made ‘em. Some kinda ghost machine.”

Rene winces, presses two fingers to his temple, and starts mumblin’ fast under his breath. “Spirit. I said spirit, not ghost. In truth, neither term fits. I was trying to convey that the mechanism was relegated to a quantum frequency slightly out of alignment with our own. Regardless, due to our previous political leaders’ propensity to doctrinal tribal warfare, our technological capabilities have been relegated, essentially, to the stone age, hence the mechanism itself is beyond our reach.” He licks his lips and slows down. “Suffice it to say, subject Two One Eight, is human. Her cells fully alive. The mechanism that caused her to become one of the animated dead, now pirated, and in the process of rebuilding her physical form, using the DNA still present in her undead cells as a template.”

I glance over at Ratchet, hopin’ for something I can wrap my head around, but all I get is a shrug. He don’t have a clue neither.

Rene closes his eyes. “She’s healing, Gentlemen. And healing takes time, particularly with damage of this extent. Everything must…” He blows out a long breath through his nose and his eyes open. “Think baby in the womb.”

That, I get. “How long before… you know?”

“She’s ‘well’ again?” Rene shrugs. “I’m not entirely sure. But understand, she will never be whole again. Oh, she’ll be fully functional, of that I’m certain, but with her memories gone, she won’t be the woman she was before.” His voice drops to a quiet whisper. “It’s a shame there’s no one alive who knew her. Comparing who she was to who she will be would prove most interesting.”

The Kid pulls his eyes from the screen. “Are you sayin’ what I think you’re sayin’?” He nods at the screen. “That you… you know?”

Dorian jumps up beside the monitor. Rene scratches her head. “That I found a cure?” Pulls his fingers down her back, right up to her raised tail. “Indeed.”

Rene

I should have thought, given the enormity of our conversation, the implications would have been obvious. But, alas, Jarl and his companions, despite their many virtues, cannot count clairvoyance among them. Indeed, as I stand there, satiating Dorian’s hunger for affection, they say nothing. Not for a while. But when they do finally regain the capacity for speech, their questions are similarly limited. What do I feed her. How can she be alive if only parts of her are regenerated. Does she bite. Will she be able to bare young. Why is she in a biohazard suit. On and on. Until at last, I raise my hands. “Gentlemen, Gentlemen. Most of you have known me for many years, called me by many names, wizard, professor. Our arrangement has never been a contentious one. I have never placed any of your tribe in peril. Quite the contrary. When blight threatened your crops, I aided you. When your scroungers discovered the warm heart of the old power reactor, did I not heal them?” I lower my hands. “I am more than happy to answer any questions you have. But for now, you have all had a long journey. Might I suggest that rest would give us all time to consider and organize our thoughts?”

It takes a few moments, but eventually Jarl assents, and in his usual profane manner, orders his men to bed. They obey, though the conversation persists in rapid hushed murmurs as they shuffle down the corridor. Silenced only when the door to the guest wing closes behind them, and I’m left alone with my Mistress curling about my leg.

A thousand questions, and none of them the right one. My gaze falls to my ankle. “Will they ever change?”

Dorian peers up at me with her wide green eyes.

“No,” I sigh. “I suppose not.” Like Sisyphus, rolling his stone. Noble, in its way. But foolish. I glance down another corridor, toward the cooler filled with blood, and my chest aches. “Of all the horrors concealed in Pandora’s box, the last to escape was by far the most cruel.” Dorrian mews, and I crouch down to stroke her head. “Who was that, you ask? Why, Hope, my Dear. That which keeps us all prisoners to the dance. Sisyphus, Jarl, and me.” I rise, and with Dorian at my heels, make my way to the cooler… to roll my own stone up the side of the bowl.

Two One Eight

“Hold out your arm.”

“Arrrm?”

He held out his own to illustrate. “Yes. Arm.”

Arm. The noise seemed familiar somehow, like a long-forgotten scent. I understood what he wanted… not really, but every time I mirrored his example, he seemed pleased. And so I did.

“Wonderful!” He raised his other arm, and I did the same. “And now?” He covered the eyes of his mask.

I did the same, but with the gloves over my face shield, I couldn’t see him. And I needed to see him. So, I peeked.

His hands swung out from his mask like doors. “Peek a boo!”

I tried to do the same. “Pee-ooo!”

He laughed. He actually laughed. Something like warm honey oozed out from my chest, filled every inch of my being. Like the warm tingles before, but stronger. Clearer. I didn’t understand it at the time, not completely. I’d never felt anything like it before. But enough of my mind had formed that I understood he was happy, that I made him happy. That making him happy made me feel this way. And I wanted…needed him to be happy.

“Now.” He held out his left arm and laid it on the table, palm up. I did the same, but instead of praising me, this time, he took hold of my wrist.

I tried to do the same, to take hold of his, but his grip tightened. I glanced up into his placid, smiling mask, and all warmth drained from my body.

“I do apologize,” he whispered, drew a glass tube attached to a needle from under the table, and plunged the tip into my arm.

There wasn’t much pain, just a prick, but it was a game I didn’t understand. Thick red liquid oozed into the tube, and he pulled away, taking the tube with him.

Before I even had a chance to make sense of anything, he pulled the needle from the tube, and both vanished under the table. “You did very well.” He pushed his chair back, rose to his feet, and turned toward the door.

A shadow of warmth prickled in my chest, but as I sat there, glancing between my arm and the mask, a new feeling wormed its way through my mind. A feeling that found its way through my lips in a single guttural groan. “Ugh?”

A groan that stopped him in his tracks.

Turned him on his heel.

“What’s this?” He stalked back to the table, leaned down, and whispered. “Have your neurons developed so far so quickly?” He held out his empty hand, and for some reason, I took it. Without hunger. “My dear.” His grip tightened, not as before, but gentle. “There is no need to fear. I would never harm you, my Eve. You are far too precious.”

Jarl

Sleep on it. Like Hell. I lean back against my ruck, slip the tip of my knife under the end of my thumbnail and scrape it clean. Just watchin’ everybody freak. Takin’ it all in.

“You know what this means?” I flick a wad of dirt off the end of my knife. Glance up at the Kid. He pulls his hands up over the back of his head so his hair stands on end. “No more hoard!” He spins around, eyein’ everyone with this half crazed, bug-eyed grin. “No more midnight guard. No more worryin’ ‘bout Hoard sneakin’ in the sewer. No more jabs or bleedin’ into bags for Rene. We can live like people again!”

Jon, one of the Mules throws a sock at his brother. “Hey, Mon? What-chu gonna do when there ain’t no Hoard?”

“Me?” Jasper throws it back and stretches out on his cot. “I’m gonna take dat girl I been seein’, find me a nice quiet place be-side de ocean, feast on crabs and jellyfish. Have me a nice big family, eh?”

“Jellyfish?” Jake, one of the other Mules’s face twists into a disgusted lookin’ knot. “You can’t eat no Jellyfish.”

Jasper folds his hands behind his head. “Of course you con? I saw it in an old menu last trip out. You just gotta put them on toast, mon.”

It’s so stupid, I actually snort back a laugh. “You either gotta learn to read or give it up. This half ass shit’s gotta go.”

“What about you, Capt-ian? What-chu gonna do when da Hoard gone?”

I glance up at Jon, then go to work on my middle fingernail. “I’ll worry ‘bout it when it happens.”

The Kid stops pacing. “You think Rene’s lyin’?”

“Nope.” I get a nice ball of junk on the tip of my knife and brush it off with my thumb. “Just don’t like gettin’ my hopes up s’all.”

And that’s when Twitch jolts upright. So quick The Kid almost falls over. “They’re here. The scent, the scent…” His hand jumps to his twisted stump of an ear, it seems to settle him a bit, and he lays back down. “Sorry.” Tucks his hand under his ass. “Sorry. It’s all good. They’re his.”

It kinda kills the mood, but it’s Twitch, so it’s nothin’ new. But The Kid can’t seem to take his eyes off him. “What’s he on ‘bout?”

“He’s feelin’ them Hoard Rene’s got penned up below.” The Kid goes pale, but if he really don’t know, we need to settle this now. I wipe my knife clean on my sleeve. “Where you bit, Kid?” It takes him a bit to pull his eyes off Twitch, but when he finally looks me in the eye, he tugs down his collar. Shows us the two white scars, almost a circle. Right above his collarbone. On his neck.

Ratchet swallows. Tosses me a strained grimace, then flops down on his cot and rolls over.

Slappin’ the flat of my knife against my thigh, I take a deep breath. “Twitch was Hoard bit. That shit Rene came up with stops whatever it is that turns ‘em zombie, but it don’t get rid of it. That’s how he knows shit. Twitch’s part Hoard. You got bit alright, but it weren’t by no Hoardling. They’da ripped your throat clean out.”

The Kid slowly raises his collar. “Then what?” Glances at Twitch. Ratchet. The Mules. “W-what bit me?”

“I’m guessin’ you felt weak for a few days. Sleepy?” He nods, I slip my knife back in its sheath, and toss it down on the cot. “Somethin’ that don’t come round too much. Somethin’ that needs blood, but don’t mean you no real harm. That don’t sleep, don’t eat, and been around since before this city was even built. A vampire.”

The Kid’s eyes go wide. “Thought they was a myth.”

“They ain’t no made-up story, brotha.” Jasper laughs, then spreads his arms wide. “Where you tink you be sleepin’ tonight? Why you be tinkin’ we be haulin’ all that tasty blood ov-a here? How you be tinkin’ Rene be livin’ out here alone in them zombie infested ruins all dis time.”

“You mean, Rene’s a-” The Kid swallows hard. “He bit me?” His hand jumps to his scar. “Does that mean I’m… I’m a?”

Damn Kid’s so wound up he looks like his eyes are ‘bout to pop out his head. I scowl at Jasper, warning him to shut the hell up, then bark out a laugh. “God you’re an easy mark.”

His jaw drops, like he just found out he married his sister. “Wha?” Sways, then flops down on his cot. Pale. Pantin’. “Holy shit! You guys… I almost had… You all suck, you know that?”

“Shit rolls downhill, Kid. An you’re at the bottom of the pile.”

Kid Huffs, mumbles somethin’ I don’t catch, and rolls over to face the wall.

Jasper glares at me from under his Dreads. I’m not sure if he’s more pissed about gettin’ told to shut it, or that I’m lyin’. It don’t matter. I’ll sort it out later. As a rule, The Kid ain’t big on courage, but as freaked as he was gettin’? Well, the damned last thing we need is trouble with Rene.

Rene

Slipping the slide into place, I press my eyes to the microscope. “As expected, Two One Eight’s altered metaphasic particles have almost completely regenerated her blood cells.” I lift my head from the aperture, pause the recording, and pull the slide free. It takes only a second to slip a sample from subject One Seven Five into the microscope and click record. “April sixth, twenty-two thirty-seven.” Almost eighty years since the initial outbreak. “In order to ascertain the virulence of the altered pathogen, two milligrams of Two One Eight’s blood were injected into one pint of type O blood, which was then mixed with rice, and offered to test subject One Seven Five. A sample was taken from the stomach lining…” I glance up at a clock hanging over the door. “Four hours after ingestion.”

I press my eyes to the microscope, but what I find is like a punch to the gut. Given Two One Eight’s rapid progress, I had expected at least some change, but? I clear my throat. “Necrotic tissue levels remain unaltered.” Another dead end. Perhaps with a more direct transference, an injection. But that’s not a real answer. I can’t run through the city injecting every Hoardling I come across, let alone the rest of the world.

I reach forward, ready to turn off the machine, when something near the edge of the slide catches my eye. A metaphasic particle latching on to another.  I center the table on that area just as the aggressor releases its captive and snatches another. Watch as the released particle captures one of its own. Then another, which also wraps its tendril around one of its fellows. On and on. “However, the metaphasic particles seem to be rewriting one another at an exponential rate.”

I don’t know how long I sit there, watching the automated particles. Until virtually all of them in view have been grappled and released. Then something truly wonderous happens. One of the metaphasic particles attaches itself to a necrotic blood cell. The pimples on its surface smooth. “My God…” I can’t breathe.

“What is it?”

I pull my eyes from the microscope and give Jarl the warmest, truest smile to grace my face in decades. “The beginning of a new world, my fine fellow. The beginning of a new world.” But it can’t be morning yet. My gaze jumps to the clock over the door. Four thirty. My smile fades. “Trouble sleeping?”

Jarl slumps over the end of my workbench, sighs, and props his arms on the table. “I gotta ask you somethin’, and I need an honest answer.” I wave a hand, motioning him to continue. “You been out lately?”

But I’m not sure what he’s getting at. “Down to the pier, the old shopping district. I go through a fair number of subjects, I’m afraid.”

“Make it as far as the island?”

Zion. Ah, so that’s it. “Not recently.”

“In the last year?”

“Perhaps.” I lean back in my chair. Press my fingertips together. “What are you asking me, Jarl?”

He lowers his head. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. That ain’t it at all. It’s just…” He lifts his face. Glowers at me from under his bushy eyebrows. “The Kid’s been bit. By a vampire. I ain’t sayin’ it was you, and even if it was, I ain’t sayin’ you done wrong. We all gotta eat, you done us all one hell of a turn, and he ain’t really hurt. But I gotta know.”

I see. “You’re curious if you have more to worry about than just the Hoard.” Jarl’s lips pull into a tight thin line, but his concern is unwarranted. “It is possible, however if there are vampires about, I’ve seen no evidence. But that doesn’t exclude other possibilities.”

“What are you talkin’ ‘bout?”

I shrug. “There was a time zombies were considered fiction. Now, granted the Hoard doesn’t exactly fit mythology, didn’t it ever occur to you that, perhaps, other myths too were based on some semblance of fact? That with the thinning of humanity, those creatures would crawl from the shadows, and rise to fill the void?”

“You sayin’ it wasn’t you?”

At this I can’t help but smile. So simple minded. It’s almost too easy. “I think you’ve been listening to gossip far too long, my friend.”

He pushes up. “You mean you’re not? But… the blood?”

“Necessary for my research.” I wave him forward. “I’ve been searching for a way to administer the cure in mass, and I believe I’ve found it. Look.” He presses his eyes to the microscope, but obviously fails to grasp the magnitude of my discovery. “I’ve managed to isolate the cure, and treated one of the pints you and your fellows so generously provided. The Hoard is drawn to the scent of blood. Once ingested, the cure begins its work.” He pulls his face from the aperture, brow creased in confusion, so I explain more simply. “I put the cure in the blood, the zombies eat the blood, and the cure spreads.”

At last, his jaw drops. “Holy shit!”

My thoughts exactly. “Indeed.”

But then his brow furrows again. “But if you ain’t… you know… then what the hell bit The Kid?”

I press my fingertips together, my face, a mask. “That, I can’t say. Not without examining him.”

Jarl

Rene pulls a syringe from a drawer under his table, plunges his forceps into a jar with half a dozen or so needles swimin’ in alcohol, and twists it into place.  “If you would, please remove your jacket, along with any undergarments you may be wearing. From the waist up.”

The Kid takes one look at the needle and his whole face twist into a bug-eyed snarl. “What are you gonna do with that?”

“I need a blood sample in order to determine if you contracted any disease or parasites.” Rene spins his chair around to face The Kid.  “It won’t hurt a bit.”

Kid tosses me a glance, like he’s beggin’ me to step in, but if Rene ain’t lyin’, if he ain’t the thing that got a hold of him, we need to know. “Do it, Kid.”

He unbuttons his armored jacket and throws it at me, then his padded shirt, and finally, his wife-beater.

“Well.” Rene slides a pair of funky lookin’ glasses on his face and rolls his chair closer. “Now, that is interesting.” Syringe in hand, he stretches the skin around the scar. Pokes around the edges with his fingers. “It seems to have healed quite nicely.” He pulls back. “Open your mouth.” The Kid obeys, Rene flicks on a light attached to his glasses, and with his free hand reaches inside his mouth. Takes hold of The Kid’s tongue. “Who treated you?”

“Gagh ugle maha.”

“Garth, you say?”

“Uh huh.”

Rene pulls The Kid’s tongue to one side and tips back his head. “The paramedic program was somewhat controversial, when I first suggested it. It took no small amount of persuasion to convince the council that immediate rudimentary care would be far superior to extensive knowledge hours later.” He lifts The Kid’s tongue and probes around the base. “Did he give you any medication?”

“He-er uh henu.”

“Hmm…” Rene lets go of The Kid’s tongue and clicks off his light. “Ingenious. He understood the reason behind the treatment, and formulated his own. Not incorrectly, I might add.”

Lovely, but he ain’t sayin’ a damn thing. “So? What bit him?”

Rene pushes his glasses up over his head. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather complete the process before I give a definitive answer.”

“You don’t have a fuckin’ clue.”

Rene just smiles. The same hollow mask of a smile he always gives. “On the contrary.” He turns back to the kid, presses a gloved finger to the scar and traces his finger along the one side. “See how perfect the lines are? Coupled with the lack of scarring on the forearms, the absence of other bites, tells me the victim did not struggle. It was a single, almost surgical bite, penetrating the carotid artery, without severing it. In addition, the usual scar tissue is absent… there is no mound, the scar exists as a discoloration only. The skin, and more importantly, the artery show no sign of damage.” He takes The Kid’s wrist and pulls his arm out straight, feels around the inside of his elbow, and without any warnin’, plunges the needle into The Kid’s arm.  “All of which indicates your friend here was rendered placid by some means, prior to the attack, and the saliva of the attacker contains some sort of coagulant that prevents infection and promotes healing.”

The Kid twitches, but Rene holds him fast. “In short, your initial suspicion was quite correct, Jarl. Your friend was most definitely bitten by a vampire, one that clearly wanted this fine fellow to continue living, and as a human.” He pulls back on the plunger, the syringe fills with blood, and Rene slips the needle out of the Kid’s arm. He tosses me one of his disturbin’ smiles and presses a folded bit of cloth where he stuck the needle. “I should think your people had best be on their guard. Who knows what plans this creature may have for you?”

Two One Eight

What is love? How do you know when you feel it? If it’s real? I don’t know. I’m not sure I ever knew. But maybe not knowing is the point. Maybe it’s the journey that shapes us, the groping in the dark. Like so many things…

Rene once told me that we are the sum of our experiences. That the woman I was is gone. Lost with my memories, my experiences. But he also said there is more to this world, to us, than can be quantified. I know that sounds contradictory, but I think he’s right. Who I was before is still in there. She comes to me sometimes, even after all these years. But never as expected. In the scent of wildflowers. The texture of porcelain. The sound of wind in the pines. A forgotten dream so near I can almost touch it, but vanishes as soon as I stretch out my hand. I feel her as an echo now.  A sort of melancholy longing, for what, I don’t know.

I think I always loved him. And how could I not? He, who reached through the veil. He who bid me to live. Who fed me. Taught me. Valued me, even before my heart took its first faltering beats.

I don’t know what brought him to my room that day. My thoughts hadn’t yet developed to the point where I could read him like I can now, but I knew something had changed. Despite the mask. For one, his hands weren’t blue, but pale.

He sat down in his usual place, scooted his chair forward, and leaned in. “Hmm… the skin on your face has regrown nicely. I’d like to examine you a little more closely, which is going to require a bit of a leap forward. Is that alright?”

Leaning back, he put his hands to the side of his head, slowly lifted the mask from his head, and laid it before him on the table. His eyes locked on mine. His face, gaunt. Narrow. But just as unreadable as the mask he wore. “I wear the mask to forestall any lingering Hoard instinct. They don’t seem so inclined to bite an inhuman, friendly visage, but I believe, given your reaction last time, we may be past all that.”

“Tha-at.” My gaze shifts to the mask, the face of the man I knew, then back to his. This new man with his voice. Speaking words I understood by tone and intent alone. Who wore a face over his face.

“But what do you say?” He tipped his head to the side. Tapped a finger against the side of his head. “Shall we remove that hood?”

Mimicking his movement, I tapped the side of my face-shield. “Hoood?”

He smiled. Rose from his chair slowly. Circled the table with all the cautious grace of a cat. Stretched out his hands. Every act deliberate. As if expecting me to lunge. But the urge never came. Not when he took hold of the ring around my neck. Not when he loosened the seal.  Not even when he slipped the hood free, and the scent of him finally reached my nostrils. Thick, musty, and warm. I closed my eyes. Drank deep that wonderous scent, and he stepped back. The sound of his footsteps no longer muffled by the suit.

“Hello.”

I drew one more breath of that heavenly aroma, and opened my eyes. “Hell-o?”

He laid the hood beside his mask, and sat down on the edge of the table. “How do you feel? Hungry?”

“F-eel?” I hadn’t eaten since he captured my undead husk. Only after being moved to this room did he see fit to give me nourishment, intravenously, though I didn’t know it at the time. I’m not even certain I had a stomach before then.

“You didn’t lunge.” Rene held up his hands for me to look at. Spoke in a soft, almost melodious voice. Stretched out his arms. “This won’t hurt a bit.” And cupped my jaw between his cold, smooth palms.

My eyes closed in a breathless sigh. “Ohhh…”

His fingers slid along my neck. “The tendons have come in nicely.” Probed under my ears, and tickled the stubble covering my head.

Tingles danced up my back. Down my arms.

He coaxed my eyes to open and gazed deep into each, first one, then the other. “I sent Jarl and his compatriots back home.” He tipped back my head. Stared up my nose. “Told them to be on the lookout for roving vampires, of all things.” His lips curled up at the corners. “Humans,” he laughed. “So eager to take the boons I offer they never once question why I should work so hard to keep their species going.” He turned my head to the right and peered into my ear. “I don’t suppose you remember having a pet? Well, I assure you, humans are some of the neediest creatures imaginable. Curious, vicious to one another, detrimental to their environment, and given to self-destruction of every kind. Keeping them alive is a full-time occupation, especially while maintaining one’s anonymity. And one must remain in the shadows, or risk becoming the focus of their violent tendencies. Even then they find new exciting ways to eradicate themselves… develop a new weapon, or their ghastly immortality machine.” He turned my head forward, looked deep into my eyes. “Six hundred,” He snorted. “I came devilishly close to losing my blood supply.”

“Sa-pal-eye.” I mimicked, cheeks on fire, heart racing.

“Yes, supply.” He tipped back my head ever so slightly, brushed my lips with his thumbs, and his eyes softened. “With humanity’s rebirth, scarcity will no longer be an issue. And, I must say, the idea of having another of my kind to share their burden, as well as eternity with is not an unwelcome thought.” My lips burned, aching for what, I did not know. He tipped his head to the side and leaned in, close enough to warm my neck with his breath, then pulled back. “But not yet. Not until your recovery is complete. I desire an equal in all things, not a mindless thrall. And besides, first we must make certain Dorian approves.”