Suffer the Children (35 page)

These chemicals survived death until final decomposition, which provided Herod the raw materials it needed. The parasite revived the mind, which in turn drew upon the stored body chemicals that made a person who and what they were.

At first, it was feared that Herod was modifying the children’s behavior, a notion later disproven. Herod was software, not information.

Ben told him that was now changing.

“Every time the children die, the integrity of these stored body chemicals is eroding a little more,” he explained. “Wiping the information stored in them.”

“So they’re—”

“Losing their memory, right. And not only that. Their personalities are disintegrating.”

David sighed at this depressing news. “I suppose it makes sense. Every time they die, they stroke out, and strokes cause neurological damage.”

“But unlike a normal stroke, the damage is selective. Herod is very clever. Motor, speech, and ocular function, and most of the higher brain functions, remain unimpaired.”

“How is that clever? What’s the endgame? Two billion children becoming what, mindless? Or will they finally permanently die? How does Herod benefit from that?”

“The children retain their minds. But here’s the rub, David. As their humanity fades, Herod’s programming takes over and supplies the body’s identity.”

David took a moment to consider the horrifying implication. He could scarcely get his head around it.
This is one of those moments
, he thought. They were piling up.

He rubbed his eyes. “Shit. Tell me you’re making this up.”

“I wish I were,” Ben told him. “And worse, the process appears to be accelerating.”

Herod wasn’t a person. It was pure hunger. The children were not only infected with bloodsucking parasites. They were
becoming
bloodsucking parasites. Monsters.

Around the world, two billion vampires were being born one resurrection at a time.

“What’s CDC going to do?”

“Well, that’s a whole other—wait a minute.”

“Ben?”

“Hang on.”

David heard Gloria’s voice in the background. They were shouting at each other.

“Sorry, I have to, uh, go. The police are here.”

Ben sounded terrified. Like a child caught doing something bad and awaiting his punishment.

“Ben—”

“Good luck, David.”

The call disconnected. David stared at the receiver in disbelief.

It’s nothing
.
They just want to ask him some questions.

He thought about Ben lying on his couch with his handgun, waiting for the police to burst through the door. He stood but sat down again just as fast, rooted with fear.

What can I do about it?

If he did nothing, it would haunt him forever. He had to do something, anything.

Ben’s house is twenty minutes away. Whatever’s happening will be over by the time I get there.

David leaped out of his chair and raced to his car, ignoring the pain in his leg.

As he drove to the Glass house, he hoped he was still living in the America he knew. He slowed the car to a crawl as the house came into view. A police van sat in the driveway. Two police officers carried a human-shaped black bag down the front steps.

“Oh, God,” he moaned, and pulled over. He limped toward a cop dressed in bulky black riot armor.

The cop put his hand on the grip of his service weapon. “Sir, stop where you are.”

David raised his hands. “I want to see Dr. Glass.”

“Dr. Glass is deceased.”

He paled. “His wife?”

“Mrs. Glass is also deceased.”

“How can they be dead? I was just on the phone with him!”

“Oh really?” The cop scowled. “Did you know he had a weapon and planned to use it against us?”

“Of course not!” David shouted at him.

“I’m going to have to ask you to calm down, sir.”

“What’s your name? I want your badge number.”

The cop frowned. “And you are, sir?”

“David Harris.”

“Well, now I’m going to have to place you under arrest, Mr. Harris.”

“For what?”

“For being at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

David took a step back. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

The cop drew his baton from his belt, stepped forward, and jabbed it hard into David’s stomach.

The pain was incredible. He couldn’t breathe.

He woke up facedown in the snow. He cried out as his hands were yanked behind his back and cuffed together.

Nadine—

“Sorry it has to be this way, sir.”

“I take it back,” David groaned. “I won’t tell anyone anything.”

“I know you won’t, sir.”

“Don’t do this! I’ll make a donation!”

The cop hauled him to his feet and dragged him to the van. “I know you will.”

The other cops stepped aside as they approached.

“Help me,” David begged.

“What’s the deal?” one of them said.

The cop tightened his grip on David’s arm. “We’re taking him with us.”

They shrugged and opened the doors.

A group of men sat on benches inside, hands cuffed behind their backs, their heads covered in black hoods. Their clothes were ragged and filthy. They stank like alcohol and vomit.

At their feet lay two shiny black body bags containing the bodies of his friends.

“To answer your question, Mr. Harris, I’m Officer Stellar.”

David screamed for help as the cop slipped the hood over his head.

40 days after Resurrection

Doug awoke in a doctor’s office, his head swimming.

Something’s wrong
.

The room was tiny. It was
shaking
.

He lay on a very narrow bed, his face a stiff mask of pain. His jacket was gone, and his sleeve had been rolled up to expose his arm. A piece of tape held an IV tube in place over his vein. His tongue probed broken teeth and tasted blood. He swallowed it.

I got hit by a car
, he thought, but couldn’t remember any of it.

He tried to sit up. Restraining straps held him down.

“Dude, be cool, be cool,” a voice said. “I’m Ted. I’m here to help you.”

A long-haired teenager with a wispy mustache smiled down at him from a bench next to the bed. He wore a dark-blue uniform and glasses with yellow-tinted lenses.

“Are my kids okay?” Doug croaked.

“You were by yourself when we picked you up. I mean, it was just you and the other guy.”

Doug winced as he remembered their botched robbery. “Russell?”

The kid shrugged. “I guess. I didn’t get his name.”

“Where am I?”

Ted laughed, as if it should have been obvious. “You’re in my rocking ambulance.”

“What happened?”

The paramedic appeared to find this question amusing. “My guess is somebody fucked you up pretty good.”

Doug remembered the blurred swing of the billy club. The pain. Blacking out.

“Where’s Russell?”

“Your friend’s in another ambulance. Anyway, you’re okay now. Are you still hurting?”

“Is he awake?” yelled the driver from the front of the vehicle. “What the hell?”

“I got this!” Ted shouted back. He rolled his eyes at Doug. “My partner. He thinks he’s my mom. Don’t worry about him. I’m here to help you. We’re the good guys, brother.”

“It hurts,” Doug gasped. “Everywhere.”

The kid laughed. “My face hurts just looking at yours. I’ll fix you up.” He prepared a syringe. “This’ll get you high. Knock you right on your ass.”

“I have to get home.”

“Not in your condition, dude. Trust me.”

Doug’s head swam. He turned his head and retched as the wave of nausea passed.

“Hey, don’t puke in here, okay?”

“Where?” Doug swallowed. “Where are you taking me then?”

To jail
, he answered himself.
They’re taking us straight to jail. My kids won’t have anybody to provide for them, and they’ll die.

“We’re taking you to the hospital. Where else would we take you?”

“Why isn’t that man sedated?” the driver shouted. “He’s still awake!”

“Because we don’t have a lot of this shit left,
Jason
. I’m trying to
conserve
, okay?”

“Well, put him down!”

“What do you mean?” said Doug. “I was just
at
the hospital.”

He tried to sit up again, but the straps held him. He looked down at his IV.

The tube was red.

Ted smiled. “Dude, just be cool, okay?”

Their eyes met. Understanding passed between them.

“Oops,” said Ted.

The needle lunged. Doug caught the paramedic’s wrist and held it.

The kid chuckled. “It’s just something for the pain. Don’t freak out.”

Doug grunted, surprised at his lack of strength. Black seeped into the edges of his vision.

I’m going to pass out
.
The needle will go in, and I’ll never wake up.

The paramedic’s face twisted into a hateful grimace. “Just be
cool
.”

Doug pushed back with everything he had. Sweat stung his eyes. The pressure only increased. He couldn’t hold it.

He let go instead. Twisted the kid’s wrist as he did.

The needle pricked the kid’s thigh. Doug pushed it in and thumbed the plunger down.

“Shit,” groaned Ted. He fell back against the wall. He blinked. “Wow.”

Doug freed himself and pulled the tube out of his vein with a spurt of blood. Legs splayed and eyes closed, Ted sat drooling. Doug reared back and punched the kid’s face with everything he had. The nose flattened under his fist. Blood poured out of it.

The driver looked back at him with murder in his eyes.

“Stop the ambulance,” Doug said. “I’m getting off.”

“Screw you, pal. You’re dead.”

“Stop, or I’ll hit him again. I’ll stick this needle in his eye. I’ll blind him.”

The driver swore and pulled over. Doug took off Ted’s jacket, pulled it on, and pocketed his flask and two bags of blood he found on the floor.

Both of these bags, he knew, belonged to him.

He opened the doors and jumped down from the back of the ambulance. The driver was still shouting at him. Doug walked away at a brisk pace, pain lancing through his head and face at each step. He swayed and almost fell; his head felt like it weighed a ton.

The empty stretch of road bordered open fields white with virgin snow. Beyond the closest field sprawled a residential community over which a water tower loomed. On the other side, a forest. Billboards advertised a legal firm and a matchmaking website.

The driver left the ambulance. Doug turned and clenched his fists. The man closed the rear doors and got back into his rig. Doug jogged several steps in the opposite direction before doubling over to catch his breath.

The ambulance roared. He looked up in time to see it bearing down, lights flashing.

Doug threw himself into the ditch as the vehicle flew past with a shriek of its siren. Doug covered his head with his hands as gravel and snow splattered him.

The ambulance disappeared into the distance.

Doug stood and brushed snow off his clothes. The paramedics were gone, but he wasn’t out of danger. He had to get off the road. He had to find someplace warm before night fell and he got lost. He scanned the darkening horizon, looking for landmarks.

There it was—the hospital, its crown barely visible over the distant woods. The sons of bitches must have been driving around it in circles while they’d bled him. Looking at the sun, Doug figured north, and from there, the rough location of the bar where he’d left his truck.

The path would take him across the empty field, through the middle of the residential neighborhood, and over the treed hill beyond.

He trudged through the knee-deep snow, stopping often to rest. Sparks floated in his field of vision. Now he knew how Joan had felt these past few weeks. That constant feeling of being suffocated.
Asphyxiation
, it was called. He kept giggling at himself but didn’t know why. The joke always seemed just out of reach.

The day’s light was failing fast as he neared the houses. The people
who lived here appeared to have either given up or gone away. No lights shone in the windows. Curtains were drawn. The streets hadn’t been plowed, and it looked as if nobody had shoveled their driveways and sidewalks in a long time. The snow lay piled in drifts shaped by the howling wind.

Doug felt exposed here; he knew he was in a dangerous position. He remembered some advice he’d heard just before a trip to Detroit:
If you ever feel unsafe in a neighborhood you don’t know, walk like you own the place.
Good advice, but he didn’t have the energy. On his last legs, frozen to the bone, he wasn’t going to fool anybody by sticking his chest out. Everything about the way he looked broadcast that he was an easy mark.

He couldn’t keep going. He had to stop. He’d walk up to one of the houses, knock on the door, and throw himself at the mercy of whoever lived there. The houses all looked the same; one was as good as the next. Cold and fatigue had him shaking uncontrollably as he staggered up the steps of the nearest porch. The front door was open. Snow had drifted across the entrance and dusted the carpet inside. He looked behind him and saw no tracks other than his own.

The streetlights switched on. Otherwise, the place was a ghost town.

The absence of people suited him just fine. He walked inside and forced the door closed. He moved to flip the light switch but stopped himself. Best not to draw attention. There might be people living somewhere in the neighborhood, but lying low like him.

The first step was to explore the house to make sure he was secure. He entered the living room, navigating by the light of the streetlights outside. Someone had been here before him and trashed the place. The mess reminded him of what Nate and Megan had done to his own house. The couch had been stabbed and gutted. Broken toys lay scattered on the floor. Crude smiley faces and stick figures were carved into the wooden coffee table. Childish, crayoned graffiti covered the bottom half of the walls.