The Parasite War (10 page)

"Jesus," he breathed. Standing up, he said. "Over here, baby."

Jo stepped into sight. "What are you doing over there?"

"Oh, just playing hide and seek."

Jo laughed. "Really?"

"Yeah . . . and what have you been doing?"

"Checking the place out with my little friend here." She waved the .32 nonchalantly.

"Find anything?"

"Just a second storey door in the north wing that goes out to a fire escape onto Cuthbert Street. It was wide open, as if somebody had just left in a hurry. I locked up after them."

"You didn't see anything else?"

"No. We're the only ones in here now."

"How can you be sure?"

Jo shrugged. "Check it out for yourself."

"I will."

Jo started to walk back toward the others, but Alex grabbed her arm.

"You almost blew the whole raid," he said.

She jerked her arm away from him. "What do you mean by that?"

"You know what I mean. Firing that shot."

"I thought I could hit one of those guys."

"With a handgun? That far away? On the run? Are you kidding?"

"No, I'm not kidding."

"I don't know if everybody made it inside. If they didn't, you've got a lot to answer for, Jo."

"Fuck you," she said, and walked away.

He watched her for a moment, and then turned to Flash and Riquelme. "See those catwalks up there?" he said. "Let's go up and take a look through those windows, see if we can find out what's going on outside."

A shaft of light from one of those very windows revealed a stairway. Alex bounded up, with Flash and Riquelme right behind him. Directing each of them to a separate window, on the north and south sides of the armory, Alex made his way down the catwalk to the west side. The glass in the windows there was smoky, but few of the panes were shattered. Alex rubbed a clear circle onto the glass at eye level and peered out.

There were infected people milling about on the sidewalk, as before. Other than a few corpses sprawled onto the pavement and in the gutter, there was no sign that there had been a battle here a few short minutes ago. Perhaps the infected understood that their enemies were now trapped inside the armory, and that waiting was the best strategy. They didn't appear to be any kind of coherent force. But why were they here at all? There was no food for them; nothing, in fact, but weapons.

Starting back down to the ground floor, Alex thought about what those weapons could mean to his guerrillas—if they could ever get out of this building.

Halfway down the stairs, he heard a commotion coming from inside the armory. His people were struggling with somebody near the door. He heard them shouting and saw a robed, bearded man striking at his attackers with a pipe. It was Samuel!

Alex rushed down and stopped them from hurting the old man. He had to forcibly push two people away. In the din of screams and imprecations, they couldn't hear him say that he knew Samuel, but the violence soon quieted. Jo stood off at a distance, leaning against a tank's treads, watching silently.

Alex faced Samuel's attackers. "This man is not the enemy," he said. "I know him. I don't understand how he got in here, but let's give him a chance to explain."

"I am the hand of the Lord," Samuel thundered, raising his pipe on high. "I smite the enemies of Israel."

"Israel?" someone said. "What's he talking about?"

"The mouth of Baal has opened, and the Children of Israel have been delivered."

"You opened the door, didn't you?" Alex asked, grinning. "You saw us from one of those windows up there, and you opened the door to let us in."

"If he did that, why was he hiding?" a woman named Mavis asked.

"He would have been killed if he hadn't," Alex pointed out. "He doesn't have a gun."

"It was the Lord's wish that you find shelter here," Samuel allowed. "I was the hand of God."

"Maybe you were, at that." Alex turned to the others. "You almost killed this man, and he was the one who made our victory possible."

"How do we know that?" Jo stepped forward. "We found him hiding in here. How do we know that he didn't just take credit for opening the door?"

"Well, if he didn't open it, who did?" Flash said.

"Even if he did open it, how do we know he did it to help us?" Jo persisted. "What if he was trying to let the infected in here, to arm them?"

"Good point," said Jill.

"What do we really know about this man?" Jo turned a cold gaze on Samuel.

"For Christ's sake, Jo," Alex said, "Samuel helped us before. Have you forgotten that he put his life on the line for us?"

"A lot could have happened since then."

She was right. It was possible that Samuel had been infected since then. He didn't seem any different, though. No blue blotches on his skin, and he spoke articulately, despite his obsessive religiosity. "He's not the enemy," Alex said.

"Would you stake your life on it?" Jo asked.

Alex looked deep into Samuel's eyes. There was madness there, but it was a human madness. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I would stake my life on it."

The guerrillas, who had been listening intently, seemed to relax a little. They trusted Alex enough to know that he would not make such a claim lightly. They withdrew to the building's corners, leaving Alex alone with Samuel.

"Don't blame them," Alex said. "They have reason to be suspicious of strangers."

"As do we all," said Samuel. "For we are all strangers in a strange land."

"Stay with us. There's safety in numbers."

"The Satanic forces have been smitten by the hosts of the Lord this day," Samuel said. "If the Lord's people have mistaken me for a demon, perhaps it is because I have for too long lived away from other men in the wilderness."

"Then you'll join us?"

"Yes."

Alex put his arm on Samuel's shoulder. He turned to see Jo's disapproving glare. She looked away as he called to the others.

"Listen up, people," Alex shouted. "We're well protected by these walls, but we need food. Obviously we can't all go, so I suggest that a couple of us slip out, go back to the park and get some supplies. Any volunteers?"

"I'll go," said Flash.

"Good idea. You know where everything is stashed. Anybody else?"

"I'll go with him," Jo said.

Alex didn't know if he liked this. But he had argued with Jo enough for one day. He wouldn't try to stop her from accompanying Flash. There was too much to do, without worrying about what she was going to do next. At least she wouldn't be screwing things up around here.

But, as he helped the others pile up the bodies, he began to wonder if it was such a good idea.

"Three dead," said Elvin.

Alex looked up from the mound of human flesh. Clearly, Elvin wasn't talking about these infected corpses. "Three of our people didn't make it?"

"That's right. Annie, Leslie, and Leonard are all out there." Elvin showed no expression, as usual, but there was a catch in his voice.

"Too bad, but at least there were only three. We gained our objective with only fifteen percent losses."

Elvin stared at him, perhaps finding Alex's reaction questionable. Alex didn't like it, either, but he knew from experience that if they didn't celebrate their victory, there would be nothing left for them to do but mourn the dead. Chaos would follow, that way. It was best to go on and plan new strategies.

There were two large store rooms on the ground floor of the armory, in the south wing, each containing several padlocked metal bins. Breaking them open, Alex and Riquelme found M-16s, portable rocket launchers, a great deal of ammunition, napalm B canisters, and flamethrowers.

"These flamethrowers are battery-ignited," Riquelme said.

"Is that good or bad?" Alex said.

"Probably bad, because the batteries haven't been charged in a couple of years. But they tend to last a pretty long time, so maybe we'll luck out and find one that still works."

"See what you can do." Alex went out to announce their find to the guerrillas. After the cheering died down, he said. "Our two volunteers should be leaving right after dark. They can go out by the door that Jo locked this morning. In the meantime, we should drag those bodies up and drop them out of a window."

"Aren't you afraid of infection?" a man named Irv Finney asked.

"We're more likely to get sick if we keep the bodies in here with us, wouldn't you think?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

Just after sunset, the bodies were dragged up and pushed unceremoniously through a briefly opened window. The infected on the street below looked up, after the first corpse thudded down onto the sidewalk, some of them shuffling awkwardly out of the way of the falling corpses. While this ugly job was underway, Jo and Flash left by the Cuthbert Street fire door. The distraction seemed to work: no gunshots were heard.

A few minutes after they had gone, Alex unlocked the same door and went out into the darkness. He had instructed Riquelme to lock up behind him, and to say nothing to the others about where he had gone.

Standing on the fire escape, Alex could see his breath in the moonlight. A few infected people were half a block away, but they didn't see him. The sickening thump of another body hitting the pavement drew their attention toward 33rd Street. Alex hung from the fire escape's bottom rung by one hand and dropped, sprinting for the nearest rowhouse. Once he was in the shadows, he slowed long enough to take a look back, trying to determine if he had been seen. Satisfied that he had not, he started toward Fairmount Park.

He was too far behind Jo and Flash to catch up. But that was all right. He knew where they were going, and he had a pretty good idea of how long it would take them to get there. He tried to convince himself that he was only following them to make sure they didn't get into any trouble. The real reason was much more disturbing.

Taking the long way around, through the tunnel, would be wise tonight. But Alex was going to take the bridge. The risk was worth it, if he could get to the park ahead of Jo and Flash. Once he was satisfied that everything was all right, he would sneak back the same way, and they would never know that they had been followed.

There was little moonlight, but Alex was used to getting around in the dark. He stayed alert, watching for any signs of life. Once, as he passed an abandoned railyard, he thought he saw the glistening hump of a colloid, but he couldn't be sure.

In ten minutes he was on the bridge. If he was attacked here, his best bet would be to jump into the river. But he was not attacked. He crossed over into Fairmount without incident. In another fifteen minutes, he was heading down the hill toward the hideout.

It was then that he heard Flash screaming. Alex didn't hesitate for an instant. He sprinted toward the sound of his friend's voice as if his own life depended on it.

It wasn't hard to find Flash. He was lying on the ground, in the path of the hideout. Glistening, shapeless things clung to his arms and legs and torso.

"Flash!" Alex cried in an anguished voice.

But Flash could not answer. His body trembled and his limbs flailed ineffectually. Colloids had eaten into his skin, and were swiftly corroding his flesh, muscles, seeking the nerves. He shrieked until a pseudopod slid into his mouth. Flash gagged, but the vomit did not stop the colloid from vanishing down his throat.

Alex opened fire, using many more rounds than was necessary. He did not intend to let his friend suffer for one second longer than he had to. His finger grew numb on the trigger, and his hands and forearms ached by the time he stopped shooting.

The colloids, feeding on Flash's nervous system, trembled with the shock of his death. In a moment, they would reject the dead body and crawl away. Alex had better not be anywhere near them when that happened. There must have been six or seven of them on Flash's body. God only knew how many more were lurking in the overgrown woods surrounding the hideout.

But he had to find Jo, no matter how many of them were here.

"Jo!" he cried, crashing through the underbrush. He reached the hideout and kicked open the door.

There was nobody inside. Apparently, Jo must have escaped. Alex tried to feel relieved, but he knew that there were other possibilities. He preferred not to think of them right now, but he couldn't help it. He could only hope that Jo would find her way back to the armory. He lit a kerosene lantern and searched for signs that she had been inside the hideout tonight. As far as he could tell, the stores of canned goods were untouched. He found a sack and filled it with as much food as he could carry.

Just before he turned out the lantern, he took one last look around. The corner of the room that he and Jo had used for their private quarters was covered by the curtain. He could not resist going over in the darkness and lifting the curtain for a moment.

There was Jo, lying on the mattress. Was she dead? His heart grew huge in his chest.

Before he could move or make a sound, he saw that something was on the pillow beside her head—something that quivered gelatinously. A thin stream rushed from the colloid's main mass, across the pillow and into Jo's right ear.

Even in the darkness, he could see the rise and fall of her breast. Her eyes were wide open, staring straight up at the ceiling.

Alex gripped the Ingram. He hadn't thought twice about killing Flash, but this . . . this was Jo. He backed away, letting the curtain drop. He could not penetrate Jo's soft flesh with bullets. Turning, he ran from the hideout, retching.

He did not stop running until he had climbed up the fire escape and was pounding on the iron door for someone to let him into the armory. There were infected people standing on the pavement, but none of them came near. If they had, he would have killed them. He didn't want to—he only wanted to be among humans, away from that hellish sight at the hideout. He had never panicked like this, not even in the worst days in Nam. "Let me in!" he shouted. "For Christ's sake, let me in!"

He almost fell as the door opened inward. The worried faces of Elvin and Dr. Siegel peered at him.