The 1000 Souls (Book 2): Generation Apocalypse (25 page)

Yet Tevy had still believed that one day the rippers would starve without enough humans to feed them, that they would starve in vast numbers just as the humans had through the first three winters. He had clung to the belief that one day they would march into Washington and reclaim the government, that all the cities controlled by the rippers would fall and things would get back to normal.

Normal. Factories producing goods, farmers plowing fields, and Hollywood making ripper war movies and people answering phones. Tevy had even fantasized about staring in an action film, perhaps even landing the role of Bertrand Allan. He could picture the last scene, setting off the bomb that would destroy both he and Vlad the Scourge.

How would they make the movie now, though? Bertrand wasn’t dead. He was a ripper watching over his secret daughter. Vlad the Scourge may be dead, or perhaps he too survived that last conflagration and renamed himself Vlad Who Bleeds.

And now Bobs wanted to save the world by ending it. Three crucial cities to America were to be wiped from the face of the earth. For the first time in his life, Tevy had to face the reality that the world would never go back to what it was before the rippers. The apocalypse could not be healed or undone. He wept.

Elliot was privy to this illegal hiding place. He was one of the few who knew how to pick the lock on the trap door, and he had first proved that it was possible to squeeze past the clock. So Tevy wasn’t surprised when, sometime after three bells, Elliot’s red-haired head poked above the rafters, and a smile spilt his freckled face.

“What the hell are you doing up here? The Brats want to throw their heroes a party. Helen even promised some cans of orange soda and fresh bread.”

Tevy hurried wiped his cheeks and sat up on the board to make room for Elliot. It was hot up here today, the dust and old wood creating a musty smell, but it was comforting one. As a child it had meant safety, security, and precious time alone.

“Have you ever been to Los Angeles or New York or Washington?” asked Tevy.

Elliot sat, but unlike Tevy he restlessly swung his legs in space, like a child in a chair that was too big for him. “My family went to New York when I was like six or so, but I really don’t remember much except tall buildings and the subway pretty much always underground. Why?”

Tevy and Elliot never kept secrets from each other.

“I heard something,” whispered Tevy.

Elliot leaned closer and whispered with a conspiratorial smile, “What?”

“We’re going to nuke L.A., New York, and Washington. Wipe them off the map.”

“Vlad’s stinking blood!” Elliot had been amusing himself since Tevy’s return by finding interesting combinations of Bishop Alvarez’s forbidden words to create new strings of profanity. But this time it wasn’t enough. He looked at Tevy with wide eyes. “Holy fuck! I mean Jesus Christ, you’re full of shit, right?”

“Wish I was, but I heard it from Bobs herself.”

“She told you?” Elliot had stopped kicking his legs and studied Tevy with an expression of disbelief.

Tevy shook his head. “I was, like, eavesdropping on her and Webb. I don’t know why, but I just gotta sometimes, just need to find out what’s going on before the news hits us like one of them LAW rockets. Webb wasn’t too keen on using his nukes, but she talked him into it. Three nukes. Three cities.”

Elliot was nodding even before Tevy finished.

“Should’ve seen it coming,” Elliot said. “I mean, what choice have we got?”

“So you’re okay with this? ’Cause it’s like ending the world. We can never get back the old America if you blow those cities off the map.”

Elliot resumed his kicking. “I don’t know that we ever could. After Vlad got toasted, I thought for a bit that things would go back to normal even with my folks and sister gone, but after the first winter, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Didn’t have to be a genius to count the bodies and know that this was major.”

“I guess I’m no genius.”

Elliot smiled and shook his head. “Endlessly optimistic, maybe even a little new, but not stupid. The nuke thing though, it is a bit harsh. Problem is the collateral. Must be a lotta people who don’t want to serve the rippers, who are slaves, not traitors, but it’s not like we can save them. If they haven’t freed themselves, we sure as hell can’t do it, except by killing them.”

Tevy slid off the board and hung down to the next set of rafters. This used to be a difficult maneuver when he was ten and his feet could barely reach, but now it was effortless, and Elliot followed his lead as he headed for the narrow space by the clock.

“Hey, where’re you going?” Elliot asked.

“Gotta talk to Emile. He’ll know what to do.”

“You’ll have to wait until later or tomorrow,” Elliot said as he slipped down past the clockwork. “All the Companions of Bertrand are having a reunion. Come on and join the Brat Pack. The kids want to hear some bedtime stories about killing rippers. Little Mia says they gotta be true stories, so I’ll leave that to you.”

Despite his worry, Tevy told many stories that night. He fell asleep in the La-Z-Boy with Mia curled on his lap and Connor, nearly a teenager himself, asleep on the carpet at his feet. It was good to be home and Tevy slept well.

The next afternoon they found Emile in his boiler room/gun shop.

“The man of the hour!” Emile’s cheeks were a brighter red than the damp boiler room could account for, so Tevy guessed he was already drunk on his moonshine.

Elliot was more observant. “Hey, where did you get the beer?”

Four empty brown bottles were lined up on the bench like soldiers, and the scent of hops mixed in the air with stale farts and wet foundation. The afternoon sun streamed through the bars of the basement windows, highlighting dust motes that would usually be invisible.

“Boys, boys, or should I say men.” Emile reached into an old plastic cooler beside him and pulled out two dripping bottles. “All I had to chill ’em with was cold water from the well, no ice a course.”

Elliot twisted the cap and took a pull. “Hey, these aren’t skunky at all!”

“From my private stash, kept cool down here and never frozen. I decided it was as good a time to open them as any, what with us moving soon. Want to travel light.”

“Moving?” Tevy twisted open his beer and took a sip. He would have sworn it was bad himself, but he had no experience with fresh beer. “Where are we moving?”

Emile smiled and sat back on his stool, leaning one chubby elbow against his bench for support. “I’m thinking downtown. Thanks to you we got a real chance now.” He gestured at Tevy with his bottle before taking a sip.

Tevy looked at Elliot to see if he understood, but when he shook his head, Tevy turned back to Emile. “What are you talking about?”

“We got an army now, don’t we?” Emile said. “We got Joyce’s Raiders back, and they’re like the old days only on steroids. I mean, how many did you bring back from St. John’s? Six hundred, and all trained and fighting veterans? That’s an army. We were amateurs back in the day compared to this new crew. And now you got us the Ericsians, too, and that’s gotta be at least another two thousand. With all of us working together, the rippers’ll never know what hit them.”

“They’ve got more, Emile,” Tevy said. “Way more. I’ve counted them.”

“Yeah.” Emile frowned and met Tevy’s gaze. “But none of the traitors are used to fighting, and the rippers can only fight at night, so we’ll do okay.”

Elliot reached into the cooler for another bottle. “But this is all defense, right? They’re all here to stop the rippers from crossing the river and pushing up north.”

Emile shook his head, one hand scratching under his long beard, now flecked with more gray than Tevy remembered, as if Emile had aged in just a few weeks. “When did Bobs ever win a battle by sitting and waiting for an enemy come after her? She’s got Webb on side this time. I mean, look at this place.” He waved around at the stuffed shelves and piles of ammunition boxes. “They opened the doors of Rock Island for us, and even heavier stuffs coming our way. Strikers and Bradleys. Stuff that can drive right into the Loop and blow holes in all those ripper lairs. This is gonna be great.”

Tevy wanted to bring up the nukes but found he couldn’t. Emile was in such a good mood. How could he ruin that? He decided that instead he would find a chance to talk to Helen or maybe even the bishop during confession. He could start by confessing to the sin of eavesdropping and then tell him what he heard. Surely, the bishop wouldn’t condone murdering millions of humans.

“So what about the nukes, though.” Elliot, probably because he was already into his second beer and drinking fast, slurred his words.

Emile squinted at him. “We can’t use the nukes, boy. They’d blow us apart.”

“No, I mean on New York and L.A. and...” He turned to Tevy. “Where else?”

Emile turned on Tevy. “What the hell’s he talking about?”

Tevy explained, relieved to be able to unload this burden on someone of authority. Emile listened silently, his eyes going wider until he had to put his beer down to look around the room, as if an answer might be among the boxes or the pipes up near the ceiling.

“So that’s what’s really going on. That’s why she says we just have to take them on now and there’ll be no ripper reinforcements, that we’ll have them on the ropes.” He drummed his fingers on the bench. “Well, if this don’t beat all.”

“Can we stop it?” asked Tevy.

“Question is should we stop it,” Emile said. “Crap. This is a biggie.”

Tevy had wondered himself. “But the bishop says that if you murder a human, like intentionally shoot a human, you’ll go to hell. Won’t we all go to hell?”

“You won’t.” Elliot weaved a bit on his stool. “I bet you didn’t even shoot any humans last night. Don’t you worry, dude.” He put a hand over his mouth. “Damn, said it again. I just can’t stop.” He reached for the cooler for a third beer, but Emile’s foot got to the lid first and pinned it closed.

“Take a breather there, kid. This isn’t water.” Emile turned back to Tevy. “You won’t go to hell for the nukes, ’cause you told me. Now it’s up to me to see what to do about it. Joyce and Jeff and Martin are here now, and with Simon and Julia and Helen that means we’ve got almost all of the original Companions of Bertrand except Barry. The bishop may have a thing or two to say about this before all’s said and done. Now drink up, you’ve earned it.” Elliot reached for the cooler, but Emile kept his foot planted firmly on top. “Not you. You’ve chugged your share. You got to learn to sip, boy. Savor it.”

Tevy continued to force himself to take swallows to be polite, but he never got to the end of the whole beer. Amanda burst through the door of the boiler room, stopping on the metal grate landing above the stairs and leaning on the railing to call down.

“Hey guys, you gotta come now! There’s tanks rolling up through the Loop and headed our way.”

Tevy wondered if the alcohol had already affected his brain because for a moment he thought she was talking about the promised Bradley’s and Strikers. “Our tanks?”

Amanda looked furious. “No! We don’t have any tanks. They’re ripper tanks and they’re buttoned up and heading for all the bridges. The rippers are coming.”

Kayla tried to see it from Joyce’s perspective: the newest member of her Raiders goes on a mission to keep an eye on a guy who could be trouble, and instead she ends up leading him and about two hundred others into battle against a seriously fortified position. Despite her attempts at understanding, Kayla still didn’t like being interrogated.

At least the food, a sandwich of chicken with butter and fresh bread, was good. Even at St. John’s, fresh meat was rare and had to be hunted and widely shared. Jeff reclined on an old couch in the corner of the cramped third-floor room having a bottle of beer that was a gift from Emile. Above Jeff was a gun rack, the temporary home of his FN F2000 and Joyce’s Uzi and three other rifles.

Martin also had a beer in hand. He stood by the window with his back to Kayla as he looked out at the view from this blockhouse to the bell tower of St Mike’s and the distant Chicago skyline, menacing because of the ripper strongholds. Joyce sat across the table from Kayla, a yellowed map of Chicago under her fingers as she extracted the story.

“So the high school,” said Joyce. “You took it out with a two-pronged assault and LAWs?”

“Four pronged.” Kayla paused to swallow so that she wouldn’t be speaking through a mouthful. “Second floor and first floor at the same time, simultaneous assaults at opposite wings of the school.”

“Did you find Radu’s body?”

“No.” Kayla had been offered a beer, and she took a cautious sip now. “We found Radu.”

Jeff sat up on the couch, and Martin turned from the window.

Joyce’s eyes looked knives. “What do you mean, you found Radu? Was he a ripper?”

“Yes, and we let him go.” Kayla braced for the storm.

“What? Are you crazy? He knows about Margaret. He knows all kinds of stuff about St. John’s.”

Kayla stood her ground. “He doesn’t know about the secret exit, and he doesn’t know about Bertrand Allan, and he wants to work for us.”

“He’s a ripper!” Joyce stood, leaning over the table in her fury.

“So’s your boyfriend, and he works for you.”

Jeff stood quickly and put a hand on Joyce’s shoulder. “Wait, wait, wait.” He looked to Kayla. “What’s the plan?”

“He’s to go and join the rippers at the Merchandise Mart and live off the dead blood, the blood donations. He’s promised he won’t murder humans for blood.” Kayla was tempted to stand and meet Joyce eye-to-eye, but that would only inflame the situation. “He wanted us to shoot him at first. Tevy talked him into it, made him promise to be our spy, to bring us information. Apparently Tevy gets down around this Merchandise Mart a lot after dark.”

“And why did you listen to that little brat?”

“Because he’s right.” Now Kayla did stand to meet Joyce’s wrath head on.

Jeff pulled Joyce back to face him. “If he is the Dormant Hero, if he didn’t just fluke out on the test, you’re going to have to learn to trust his gut the way you trust Bert.”