Blood Day (40 page)

Sia
, came Viv’s voice in her head.
Sia, there’s something wrong.

I’ll come to you
, Sia replied silently.
But first, I must reap what I’ve sown.

She began to play. For the first time since the world went dark, the air was full of music. The woods began to stir.

Forty-One

Mike could not honestly say what happened in the halls of the hospital. He knew that Joshua Flynn had shown up with a naked Sia, and that Sia had killed the old nurse. And the next thing he knew, he was standing in a snowy courtyard with a goddamn stake in his good hand, surrounded by a music that seemed to reach into his soul. He turned to see Sia, crusted in blood like she’d showered in it, and her hair was as wild as her eyes as she spun barefoot in the snow as she played. Her fingers moved so quickly that they were a blur, and Mike swore he saw a tendril of smoke rise from the strings of the violin.

The woods were moving, and Dez moved closer to him.

“Mikey, what are we doing?” said Dez, his face pale and sickly.
 

“You should go, Dez,” said Mike. “I don’t know what she did to your head back there, but you don’t belong here.”

“Why? Because I’m a coward?” he said angrily, gripping a stake in each hand as he watched the woods. Mike saw movement out of the corner of his eye and he looked toward the hospital. They were being watched. There were Revs crowding in every window, watching them. Some were laughing, others watching Sia, just as transfixed as Mike when he’d first seen her. She was like a nightmare that you didn’t want to end. He didn’t understand her hold over everyone she met, but all of them seemed intent on killing themselves to protect her.
 

“I don’t think you’re a coward, son,” said Mike. “I just want you to survive.”

“My life isn’t any more important than yours,” said Dez. “And I’ll risk it however the bloody hell I want to.”

“I don’t think we get out of this alive, Dez,” said Mike.
 

“Those kids, Mikey,” said Dez. “I’ve never done anything good in my life. Maybe the reason I was stuck in the middle of all this is to save those kids. Maybe this is my shot.”

“You’re a good man, Dez.”

“Nah,” he said, and Mike could see in his eyes that he’d made up his mind. “I’ll go down swinging, mate. I’ll go down fighting. And then you can say I was a good man who died. I’m not afraid anymore. I want to do what’s right. I’m done being a coward.”

Mike nodded.

“Okay, Dez.”

And as Dez turned to face the Rev walking toward him, Mike could see a strength in the young man that wasn’t there before. Dez walked out in front of a Rev who pointed a pistol at him. Without even blinking, Dez had the stake in the Rev’s chest, backing away as the wood took hold and the vines spread out around the Rev’s chest, turning from green to brown, roots plunging down as branches reached for a sky as clear as Mike could ever remember. Black petals rained down on Dez’s head as he looked up at the tree that had a moment ago been a Rev.

“Why didn’t he shoot me?” said Dez.

Mike looked at Sia, who played on, her eyes closed, the flurry of sounds vibrating like passion in Mike’s chest. Sia opened her eyes and smiled at him. He tore his eyes from her and looked back to the forest. The Revs were, one by one, stumbling out of the wood, guns in hand but not shooting.

“It’s the music,” Mike said. “They’re drawn to it like flies.”

“It’s the Revenant in them,” said Joshua Flynn, suddenly at Mike’s side. “They will forever be drawn to beauty. Conrad turned it into their weakness. And they will defend Conrad to the death.” He dropped a pile of sharpened sticks between Mike and Dez. Mike looked past Joshua at the trees where the Revs were hiding.

“Do they even know?” he said. “That they’re standing in a graveyard?”

“They’ll get the idea eventually,” said Joshua.

The faces from the windows were starting to disappear and Revs were filing out to watch Sia play. Mike stood, transfixed, as Joshua Flynn moved, so fast he barely saw him, leaving trees where monsters once stood. Dez yelled out as he drove stake after stake into the bodies of the helpless creatures. Mike watched one of the Revs come out of the hospital, tall and pale. He dropped the gun he carried in the snow and made his way toward Sia, moving like a sleepwalker. Tears fell from his face as he watched her dance, as he listened to the music. He fell to his spindly knees and all Mike could do was stare at him. His teeth were sharp and yellow, his eyes were red slits, and he was the most piteous creature Mike had ever seen. The Rev put his hand out, as though to touch the music, and Dez pushed Mike aside and drove a stake through the Rev’s heart.

“Stop this,” Mike said.

Sia played on, and Mike was now standing in a forest growing thicker by the second.

“Stop this,” he said again.

He watched a female Rev, swaying awkwardly to the music. Joshua took her in a blur of movement and was gone again.

“They just want to listen to the music,” Mike said, but his voice had gone quiet and hoarse. He realized he was crying, too. He held the stake that Joshua had given him in his good hand and he looked at it now.

He heard her voice in his head, and he knew it was Sia.

If I stop playing, they will kill you.

“I know,” Mike said aloud. “I know that. But goddammit. I can’t just kill them standing there like that.”

And what about Kyra? What about your wife?

“What about her?”

It wasn’t your fault, Michael. It was them. It was us. You did the kindest thing you knew to do. You let her go. If you let these creatures live, they’ll do to those children what they did to Kyra. Only they won’t use their teeth. They’ll use scalpels and syringes and antiseptic.

“Don’t ask me to do this,” Mike whispered. “I’m not a killer.”

Mike couldn’t see the sky any longer. When he looked up, cool petals fell on his face. There was no movement around him any more, no fluid movements or dancing or people turning into trees. The silence seemed to hit Mike like a knife. Sia stopped playing. Mike walked through the trees, afraid of what he would find, afraid of what he wouldn’t.

He came around a group of twisted trunks, avoiding the face he could clearly see in the wood. Dez stood there, smiling at him.

“Mikey, did you see me?”

He nodded. “I saw you, Dez.”

Dez smiled, looking like his old cocky self again for a moment. Then there was movement behind him. Mike barely registered the pale face, the black coat, the eyes like slits when the shot rang out. And Dez stared at Mike, his eyes wide.
 

“Dez,” Mike said. He felt frozen. All he could do was watch as Dez put a hand to his chest and looked at the blood flowing over his fingers.

“Mikey,” Dez said, his voice like a child as he fell into the snow. Mike saw the Rev step toward the man, the gun still raised, aimed straight at Dez.

Mike felt his feet move, and he was headed fast for the Rev. He felt himself screaming and it seemed the Rev was moving so slowly as he looked up and saw Mike coming at him. Mike had the stake in his chest before the Rev could squeeze the trigger again. And Mike was still screaming as the Rev disappeared, gun and all, into the trunk of a tree, its branches stretched out as if in surrender. Mike stepped away, the scream dying, but still echoing. Black petals rained down around him as he turned to see Dez on the ground, the snow stained dark.

Mike sank down next to him, the boy who had once been nothing to him, a greasy liar, a rogue. Mike looked at his face, and his dying eyes, and he didn’t see a punk. He saw a man.
 

“Dez,” Mike said, trying to lift him up. He was limp, but Mike managed to lift his head out of the snow, cradling him with his good hand.
 

“Was I brave, Mikey?” Dez said, blood in his teeth. “Did I save the kids?”

“You were brave,” Mike said. “You were the bravest man I’ve ever seen. You saved them all.”

“I wanted you to be proud, Mikey,” he said. “I wanted to be something to you.”

“Dez,” Mike said, shaking him as his eyes unfocused. “Dez, don’t do this. Don’t leave me here.” He began to cry as the life went out of Desmond Paine’s eyes, letting go of the sob that had been in his chest since the Rev’s gun went off.
 

“It’s time to go,” said a deep voice behind Mike. Flynn’s voice.

“He wanted to save the children,” said Sia. “Come, Michael. Let’s obey his wishes.”

“He was just a kid,” Mike said, his voice weak and pitiful.

“He got his wish,” said Sia. “It was all he wanted, in the end.”

“We all do what is necessary to get the things that we want,” said Flynn. “Stand with us, Mr. Novak. Avenge your friend.”

“There’s no one left,” said Mike. “Everyone’s dead.”

“Ambrose Conrad is just through those trees,” said Sia, her eyes bright, even in the dark.
 

“What good am I to you?” he said, looking at the two of them.
 

Sia crouched next to him. “You mean something to her,” she said.

“Her?”

“Genevieve.”

Mike blinked. “Viv’s alive?”

“She’s with the children,” said Sia. “And your friends are coming. They’re at the gates. They’ve searched long and hard for you. It is time for you to choose.”

“The Fallen are here?” said Mike.

“Coming to save you,” said Sia. “Do you want to be saved? Or do you want Genevieve?”

“Sia, let us go. Leave him.”

“No, he’s important,” she said, smiling at Mike. She bent and whispered in Mike's ear. “I told you that you would be the lucky one.”

Forty-Two

Viv watched Conrad grow weak, a tube in his chest, a glass cylinder catching the dark blood coming from him. She looked down the line of tiny hospital cots, trying not to feel. Trying not to remember. Trying to stay cold and angry and hungry.
 

They had finally crossed through the thickness of the trees and opened a thick metal door with the letter “Z” stenciled on it with chipping white paint. Conrad led her down a slippery concrete staircase.
 

“None of them were allowed down here,” he said. “Only Mathilde and a dedicated staff.”

“I suppose now it’s only the dedicated staff,” said Viv. The memory of Mathilde, Conrad’s sister, screaming on a slab, sat like a sour taste behind her eyes. She could see down into the darkness, but all she saw were stairs and mold and tiny crawling things. She wrinkled her nose in disgust at the smell of feces and something rotten.

“No, I killed all of the staff,” said Conrad.
 

Conrad closed the thick metal door and drowned out the glorious sound of music coming from the courtyard. A song so heated and varied and multifaceted that Viv couldn’t believe the sounds could come from one person. But the music was still playing in Viv’s head. She had to close her eyes from time to time when a note touched down deep inside of her, resonating within her bones.
 

As Viv had descended the last few steps, she saw the first of them. Small faces, tucked away into tiny beds, so thin they looked like ghosts.
 

Children. So many children. The beds went on forever, it seemed. Every child who had been taken in Philadelphia, maybe every child in the state. Every child who had survived. All brought here and pumped with sedatives, an IV in each arm delivering a heady brew of vitamins and pentobarbital. Viv was overcome and couldn’t move for a moment. She froze in her tracks as she looked out over the ocean of tiny faces of every shade, every race, every sweet innocent eyelash. Viv felt her mouth open and close as the shock washed over her. She knew children could be on the grounds, but she was not prepared for what met her eyes. Conrad walked to a table set against the wall and pulled a white sheet from a large machine. Viv noted a nearby door that looked like a restaurant walk-in refrigerator. She moved to a small child who appeared starved, her cheekbones sharp and her skin sallow. Viv discovered she wasn’t hungry around the children, which surprised and confused her at the same time. She’d been unstoppably hungry in front of Margaret Watts, and when Conrad took an orderly in the halls Viv felt her teeth descend. But the children gave her nothing but a sorrow, deep in her chest. Perhaps it was the weak blood, or the starvation. Viv touched the girl’s face and jumped as the tiny beauty opened her eyes just a little. Viv smiled at her as the child gazed up at her. The girl opened her mouth and her face flattened as her teeth descended.

Viv backed away, but the girl was already asleep again, her eyes rolling up and her face returning to innocence. She looked at Conrad, who had a tube stuck into his chest, his face a mask of pain as he turned on a switch on the machine. It began pumping out thick, dark red blood and dripping it slowly into a dozen glass vials.
 

“Heart’s blood,” said Viv. “It’s no different than blood from any other part of your body, you know.” She tried to keep the anger from her voice.
 

Conrad closed his eyes. “You know very little about us, Genevieve. You’re still so young.” He slumped back in his chair, letting the pump take blood straight from his heart.

Viv approached a sleeping boy, his chest rising and falling shallowly as he struggled for breath in his tiny chest. Viv pulled down the blanket off his chest and saw the thick, jagged scar where they had cut him open. She stepped away, looking at Conrad. Another boy, this one older, ten years old, maybe. She pulled away the blanket and saw the same scar. She looked down at her own chest, pulling the clean scrubs Conrad had given her out away from herself. She reached down and traced the white scar all the way up to her collarbone and covered her mouth so she wouldn’t cry out.

There were thousands of children. And all of them had been torn apart, their hearts replaced.

“They’re asleep because you can’t turn them on yet,” she said. “You didn’t know how to fix them. Like Sia.”

“My sister knew how,” said Conrad. “If only I’d listened. But I wasn’t ready to abandon my experiment yet. I wasn’t ready for an army as strong as I am. I wanted to keep them weak. You see what Joshua has done to me?”