Blood Day (2 page)

“You over there. Stop that.”

The talking continued, voices murmuring and blending into one long, low sound. More than one voice. Curiosity got the best of her and Sia opened one eye slowly, waiting for the pain of the glare to subside before she opened the other. She was staring up into a fluorescent light. She blinked away tears from the brightness and looked away. She was on a gurney. Lifting up her hands, she saw that someone had made an attempt to clean her up. Most of the blood had been washed away, though it was still thick under her fingernails. She touched the front of her and found a clean gown had been put on her. Padded leather straps chained her ankles to the side of the gurney.
 

Sia lifted her head slowly and looked around, moving as little as possible. It looked like a hospital. The gurney was in a wide hallway as though she had been an afterthought. A nursing station sat across from her, the front protected with plexiglass. A man stood in front of the glass, talking heatedly to the nurse sitting within.

Sia couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he seemed upset. He wore a long brown coat and his hair was dark peppered with gray in the back. The nurse was glaring at him with a dour expression. Other than their voices, the hospital was eerily quiet. Quiet as the grave. Sia looked behind her to find no one there. All the room doors were closed. She pushed herself up and pulled on the ankle restraints. There was a padlock on each one. She tugged and they clinked loudly against the chains.

“Lay back down. You’re only going to hurt yourself.”
 

Sia looked over to see the nurse behind the plexiglass pointing a finger at her. The man turned around to look at her. He was in his fifties with a dark and silver scruff on his jaw that looked a few days old. There were bags under his eyes like bruises and he looked more tired than she felt. He raised an eyebrow at Sia and then turned and talked to the nurse again.
 

The nurse glared at him, wrinkled up her bony face, and said, “NO, SIR. I AM GOING TO CALL SECURITY NOW.”

He turned and made a beeline for Sia’s gurney, his coat flaring out behind him like a cape. He sidestepped the sick on the floor and grasped Sia’s hand.

“Quick, what’s your name?”

“My…name?” she said. She’d forgotten about trying to free herself. He was staring at her, something in his eyes that was like panic, but different. It was a need. Sia recognized it.
 

“Yes, yes, your name,” he said rapidly. “What is it?”

“Sia Aoki.”

“Okay, Sia Aoki. I’ll try to get you out of here. But answer some questions for me. They picked you up tonight, didn’t they? Slacker?”

“Yes,” said Sia softly. “Among other things.”

“Right, we’ll get to that. How did you get here?”

“Movers,” said Sia slowly. “They tranqed me. Stuffed me in a van.”

“SIR, YOU GET AWAY FROM MY PATIENT! I WILL CALL THE MOVERS!”

“They’re going to do something to you here, Sia Aoki,” said the man. “I don’t know what, and I don’t know why, but I’ll try my best to get you out. And when I do, you’ll tell me the whole story. Deal?”

“What are they going to do?” said Sia.

“I just told you, I don’t know,” he said. “Call me when you get the chance. Tell me where you are. I’ll get you out. I’m Mike Novak. I work at the Post. Got it?”

“You work at the newspaper?” said Sia.

“Mike Novak at the Post,” he repeated. “Call me, you understand?”

“I don’t like needles,” said Sia. “Please. Help me.”

“There’s nothing I can do now.” He looked around as the angry nurse picked up the phone behind the plexiglass. “Say it, Sia. Who am I?”

“Mike Novak. At the Post.”

“Good girl. Stay strong, okay? I’ll try to come back.”

And then he was gone. A metal door opened and shut and heels clicked on the floor as the nurse walked over to her.

“Well,” she said, “look what you’ve done all over the clean floor. Are you ashamed?”

Sia blinked at her. “Yes,” she said.

“You should be. Look at the state of you.”
 

Sia cringed from the nurse’s eyes. They were cold and mean.
 

“What did that man say to you, hmm?” she said, standing rail-straight with her feet together, her hands behind her back. “Did he give you anything?”

“What? No. He was…lost.”

“You know he only wanted to take advantage of you, don’t you?” The nurse cocked a thin eyebrow. “Do you know why?”

“No,” said Sia.

“Because you are weak. You are weak and pathetic. You are pathetic because you take the Slack and you are weak by nature. But we are going to change that.”

“I don’t want to take it anymore,” said Sia. “I’m so scared.”

“You have nothing to fear if you follow the rules,” said the nurse. “Do you follow the rules?”

“No,” said Sia. “I don’t like needles.”

“Would you rather they took it out of your neck? With their teeth?”

“No.”

“Then I suppose they are doing us a kindness by taking it out in an efficient manner, are they not?”

“I don’t know,” said Sia. “I guess so.”

“You will learn to overcome your fear of needles. Now what is your name?”

“Sia.”

“Well, Sia, how do you feel?”

“Not very well.”

“Good,” she said, smiling. “That means you are getting that poison out of your system. Soon you will be a functional member of society. My name is Evelyn Hauser. You may call me Nurse Hauser. You may not call me Evelyn. Miss or Ma’am will do nicely as well.”

“Okay,” said Sia. “Ma’am.”

“Very good. You’re not completely hopeless.”

“Am I to be a Bleeder?” said Sia.

“I beg your pardon?”

“A full time donor,” said Sia. “Is that why I’m here?”

“No, Sia,” said Evelyn Hauser. “We have something much bigger planned for you. But for now, some rest, I think. When you wake up you will feel very sick. I will not give you anything for the pain, do you understand?”

“Okay,” said Sia. She wrapped her arms around herself. “May I have a blanket? I’m so cold.”
 

Evelyn Hauser grunted and walked away. Sia eyed the restraints on her ankles. She wasn’t getting away. Even if she could get off the gurney, she was exhausted. Her muscles hurt. It seemed even her soul hurt. She wouldn’t get far, and then they really would bleed her. She sighed and lay back down on the padded slab.

The click of heels announced the return of Nurse Hauser. She plopped something heavy on top of Sia. A stack of white blankets. Evelyn Hauser shook one out and spread it over Sia. Then spread the other two over the first. They were hot as if they’d been in an oven. Sia began to feel drowsy.

“You see?” said Evelyn Hauser. “I am not unkind. I only want you to live up to your potential.” She narrowed her eyes as she looked at Sia. “What did you do before the Annex?”

“I played music in New York.”

“Rock and roll?” said the nurse, wrinkling her nose.

“No. In an orchestra.”

“Why did you come to Philadelphia?”

“I was born here. My mother lived—” Sia stopped. She suddenly remembered finding her mother, dead on the floor of the kitchen. Something was wrong. Someone was missing. Someone important.

“Well, you won’t be seeing your mother again, I can tell you that right now,” said Hauser, a haughty expression on her face. “No more mothers and no more music.”

“I miss playing music more than anything.”

“Is that so?” said Evelyn Hauser. She clasped her hands behind her back again. “Well, unfortunately you won’t be able to do that again, will you?”

“No,” said Sia. “No more music.”

“It’s not as though the world will miss one instrument, Sia,” said Evelyn Hauser. “You must learn to cope with the changing world.”

“Six,” said Sia.

“Six what, dear?” said Evelyn Hauser.

“Six instruments. I didn’t play one. I played six. I was a prodigy.”

“A prodigy, is it?” said Evelyn Hauser. “And a liar.”

“I’m not lying,” said Sia flatly. She felt a tear roll out of her eye and into her hair.

“Well then, that’s excellent news,” said Evelyn Hauser, a cheery note in her voice. “It means you can be trained.”

“Like a dog?”

“Like a woman who values her life. I cleaned blood off you, Sia. Shall I instead send you for processing, for whatever atrocity you committed tonight? Hmm?”

“No ma’am,” said Sia, quickly. “What do you want me to do?”

“For now, sleep,” said Evelyn Hauser. “We’ll work out the rest after you’re feeling better. That may take some time, Sia. You must understand that.”

“I won’t take it again,” said Sia. “I don’t want it.”

“Your body doesn’t know that yet, dear. You will not enjoy life these next few weeks. But this is a gift. A chance to redeem yourself. You want that, don’t you?”

Yes, Sia thought, she did want a chance to redeem herself. But not to the Revs. To Trey. To the mother she couldn’t save. To the husband too weak to go on living. Sia simply nodded.

“Good. Now sleep, and I will prepare a room for you. You’re the first, you know. The Revenants are calling you the Beta.”

“Why not the Alpha?” said Sia, her eyes heavy. She could barely hold them open.

“They will call you the Alpha if you survive,” said Evelyn Hauser.

Two

Mike Novak hated blood day. He cinched his trench coat and looked around, avoiding the eyes of the guards who walked up and down the line outside the Bank. Bleeders, Mike thought drily. Blood for the monsters. His chest tightened as a guard walked by. All humans: guards, processors, the people that took the blood. The Revs were the monsters, but everyone was ugly now. The Blackout had changed everyone for the worse. The wind was frigid and Mike’s eyes watered as he stomped his feet to stay warm.

“Hey, don't I know you?” said the woman in line behind him.
 

“No,” he said, barely turning his head. He didn't need to give her a better look at his face. It would just make things worse.

“Yeah, I know you,” she insisted.
 

He glanced quickly behind him. The woman's eyes were still burning into him. He saw the recognition in her face before he looked away.
 

“Oh my God!” the woman brayed. “It's you. I saw you on TV. You killed—”

“Quiet!” the guard said, stalking quickly over to them. He took out a nightstick and waved it. Mike snorted. “No talking in line,” the guard said, narrowing his eyes at the woman. She flinched as the guard slapped the nightstick in his palm. Her eyes darted from Mike to the guard, then back again. “No talking,” the guard said again, before walking away, sauntering up and down the city-block-long line of shivering, grumpy people.
 

A very thin man a few people up from Mike looked jaundiced and slightly yellow. He swayed on his feet. With the Revs taking more and more blood every time, these people were barely alive. Even the woman whose eyes were burning into the back of Mike's neck was pallid and almost gray. Mike felt weak, but he had always been robust. He had inherited his father's barrel chest and penchant for rowdy drinking, at least in his youth. These days he barely cracked a beer. It was all watered down now anyway.

“I know what you did,” whispered the woman.
 

“You don't know shit,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.

“Everyone knows,” she whispered.

“And yet,” said Mike, “no one cares. Now leave me alone. It's my blood day. Let me enjoy my malaise in peace.”

“Murderer,” she said.

“Alleged,” Mike said. The woman was silent after that. The sun rose and made his head throb as its thin light burned into his eyes, the cold wind refusing to let up. The line moved quicker in the morning than in the evening, after work. It was a different crowd in the evening. Men and women in business clothes, mostly. Looking around, Mike saw elderly people, middle aged women, men with paunches who looked sad on their newly-paltry frames. There were no children, never any children, though some of the women rocked back and forth on their heels as though cradling a baby. Mike eyed the guard as he walked by again and sighed. The world was a wound rubbed raw.

Mike checked his watch when he reached the front of the line: seventy-two minutes and thirty-three seconds this time. Another guard waved him through the glass door she held open. Words painted on the door had been blacked out with sloppy swipes of paint. Mike remembered when this was an Urgent Care clinic. When the purpose of the building was to help people. He stepped in through the doors. A bored woman with a clipboard stood in the back, at the end of the hall beyond the exam rooms. She waved Mike toward her impatiently. Light glinted off the diamond studs in her earlobes.

    
“Name?” she said without looking up. She wore black frame glasses, her eyes and cheeks caked with makeup. She raised an overly plucked eyebrow and looked up at him. “Name?” she said again, an edge to her voice. She tapped her heel loudly on the dirty tile floor.

    
“Mike Novak.” She turned pages on her clipboard and checked something with a silver pen.

    
“Exam room two,” she said. “Next!”

    
Mike turned as he passed the first room, with its four waiting room chairs packed into the small space. He saw a woman's eyes roll back, the tube pulling blood into a small plastic bag continuing to drain her. A man staggering out of exam room three ran into Mike. His eyes were red with spider-webbed veins and his skin was dry as paper. A finger of blood ran down his arm.

    
“I got to get out,” he whispered huskily to Mike.
 

    
“They'll find you,” said Mike. “They always find you.”

    
The man pushed Mike weakly and ran stumbling, zigzagging, past the woman with the clipboard. Almost looking bored, the woman picked up a walkie-talkie from the counter and called the guards.
 

    
“We have a runner.”

    
Mike heard yelling from the back of the clinic. He closed his eyes for a moment, before turning and walking into the room marked with a large red
2.
He sat in the only vacant chair, avoiding the eyes of the other three people in the room.