Bestial Read online

  “In other news, the vice mayor was discovered in her home, the victim of an apparent suicide, a single shot from a pistol registered in her name. The mayor of Cincinnati has yet to be found; he is presumed dead.

  “This is just one of many suicides blamed upon recent events. In the few notes that have been discovered, the deceased all state that guilt drove them to suicide. Many people seem to have been psychologically damaged by the violence they committed while under the influence of Lycanthrope Syndrome. We have local psychiatrist Dr. Ford Bradley in the studio to tell us …”

  Chesya reached up, placing her dark hand over Rick’s pale one, pressing it farther into the meat of her shoulder. She knew she shouldn’t feel comforted by this evil man, this bank robber, but the contact reassured her more than any words could.

  Human contact.

  Skin on skin.

  Outside the diner, more people shambled past.

  “I think you’re right,” she said. “We’ll head for the bank before it gets dark, seal ourselves in the vault. We can figure out more in the morning.”

  “I believe it’s the smart thing to do,” he said. “We might even get some sleep.”

  Watching the people walk past the diner, the empty faces, the questioning looks, she knew he was right.

  Suspicion lingered in the air like a foul odor. Nobody knew whom to trust. Many didn’t even trust themselves.

  Chesya said, “Let’s stock up on supplies to take with us, all right?”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” Rick answered.

  They moved toward the back room, carefully stepping over the bodies of the owner and his wife. Chesya tried not to look, but she found herself compelled to glance at the dead people. Shivering,

  she followed Rick into the rear of the diner.

  14

  SEPTEMBER 17, 5:25 P.M.

  When Christian started his trek to Bio-Gen, the streets were teeming with people. It was as though all of the survivors who had disappeared into their homes that morning had all decided to walk around the city at the same time. Families wandered through the parking lots that had once been busy city streets, some sitting on their cars, waiting for the tow trucks to free them. Others were searching for loved ones. They called out names into the boisterous, urban symphony.

  One family rested against a Ford Taurus, obviously laying claim to the car. The man had his arm around the woman’s shoulders, and the children played between the stranded automobiles. The wife had laid out a picnic supper on the hood of the car, and the husband calmly ate a chicken leg, as if refuting the state of the world, ignoring all of the events of the previous night—a lovely family picnic held in the middle of catastrophe, even as, thirty feet away, two men were arguing, swearing at each other, and pointing at crumpled fenders.

  Christian concluded that they were fighting over whose insurance would pay for the accident. As though insurance still existed. As though any of it really mattered anymore.

  He could still see the street-crazies, wide, watery eyes staring out from the darkness of alleyways, from behind the protection of Dumpsters. Preferring not to get involved, they scurried like cockroaches away from the light. Christian supposed they chose the relative safety of the shadows over the glaringly bright, noisy, highly populated streets. Shadows couldn’t change into ferocious beasts. Shadows couldn’t harm you. Shadows didn’t argue or lie or fail you. They only hid you, cloaked your sins so that others couldn’t see them.

  Hadn’t he been hiding in an elevator in a warehouse until this very morning? Hadn’t he escaped from this very same smiling-family bullshit, happy faces that hid deep secrets and even deeper wounds? His father had smiled just like the man with the chicken leg.

  One tall African-American man, his shirt shredded in several places, his cheeks stippled with garbage and blood, glared at the boy as he stepped past him. Then, silently, he backed away, his face obscured by the shadows.

  Glancing nervously at the sky, Christian saw that the sun was beginning to set. He didn’t want to be caught on the street in the dark. If the monsters didn’t get him, the street people would. He picked up the pace, clambering over the stalled cars. He eased his way around a pile of hot dog carts, tipped on their sides. He could smell the rotting meat.

  The city bristled with more and more life. A young man held a girl’s hand, his eyes scanning the horizon. Another man led a ten-year-old boy through the maze of trapped machinery, never pausing to look down at the child. Other people spoke with their new friends, rationally discussing the strange things that were happening.

  Christian didn’t see any of the tow trucks that were supposed to be clearing the streets, but he heard from several people that the problem was extensive. Highways were blocked, side streets were full of wreckage. Power lines and phone lines were down, lying like inert snakes along roadsides. It would be a long time before the tow trucks made a passage through the mess.

  Christian saw the doors, but for a moment he didn’t register the words painted on them. Exhaustion was eating its way through his bones, acidic and debilitating. When he finally focused enough to read the sign that said “Bio-Gen,” he grew more determined.

  He had to find Jean.

  He had to ask the old man what was happening.

  He wanted to feel safe again.

  Christian opened the door and went inside.

  While he had been playing house in Jean’s apartment that morning, he had scribbled down the old man’s office number, which he had discovered on a piece of junk mail that Jean had brought home from the lab. Office number 316. It was on the third floor.

  Sighing, Christian began to search for the stairwell, amazed at the cleanliness of the lobby. Other than a capsized desk, it didn’t seem to have been traumatized by the beasts.

  A phone lay on the floor, still attached to the wall, and he dashed toward it. Listening to the receiver, he let out a frustrated sigh. He should have expected it, but the lack of a dial tone confirmed his worst fears about the damage sustained by the city overnight.

  Christian was unnerved by the sterility of the hallway, the lack of any signs or art on the white walls, the floors shining and scrubbed and buffed clean. His sneakers squeaked as he walked down the long corridor that led from the lobby. He passed the doors, labeled 101, 103, 105, and so on. These were the rooms where Jean had toiled.

  Again, Christian wondered why he was here looking for the old man, despite his need for answers and companionship. No matter how kind the Frenchman had been to him, he had still used him for his own needs, had still taken away some small part of Christian. The boy could almost taste the old man in his mouth, and perspiration broke out across his forehead. He wiped away the cool, wet sweat.

  The walls in his home in Indian Hill had always seemed wet to him, as if sweating from the effort of hiding secrets from the neighbors. The rough hands that shook him awake late at night, the same callused hands that held his head down, shoved his face into the pillows—sometimes they belonged to his father, and sometimes they ended in the hairy, muscular arms of his father’s buddies. Their breath always reeked of alcohol and cloves, cigarettes and sin.

  107, 109, 111 …

  His mother had watched him carefully during the day, terrified that he might leak the clandestine proclivities of his father. In turn, Christian had observed her hesitant motions, her tired, heavy-lidded eyes. Christian believed she knew all about what her husband was doing, and she did nothing to change him. She didn’t grab her boy and run. She embraced the monster, slept with him after he’d washed the sperm from his belly, kissed him on the same lips he’d used to ravage her son. She must have known about it. She had to. How could anyone be so naïve?

  To all appearances, they were a perfect family.

  113, 115, 117 …

  After he ran away from that house, he could still smell the sweat from the rapists. He could still feel their taint on his skin. It was two weeks before he managed to stink enough from his lack of bathing to cover up th
e stench of defilement.

  When he had met another runaway, a boy younger than himself, he had thought the friendship would last. He’d been tired and hungry and thin as a rail. The boy, whose name Christian had forgotten, had told him how to make money for food. He’d shown him where to find older men, safer men, men with wives and kids at home. These were men with secrets, and men with secrets would give money away in order to keep those secrets buried.

  119, 121, 123 …

  He’d been repulsed by the thought of another man touching him that way, horrified that the abuse would start again. He’d resisted for as long as he could, passing the parking garages and vacant lots where such men gathered. These weren’t typical gay men, men who accepted who they were and built good, solid lives despite adversity. They weren’t the type of homosexuals Christian respected. These men were liars, telling themselves they were straight, respectable citizens, who had wives and families and mortgages, living lives half-shadowed, darkened by the subterfuge. Soon, Christian found it difficult to think of them as men at all. They were something else. Something dead.

  It made giving in to them easier.

  125, 127, 129 …

  At first, he vomited after having sex with these nocturnal creatures, vampires with fetishes for young flesh. It was a reflex, regurgitated memories of his father and his buddies. Eventually, though, he’d been able to act charming to the men. That’s all it had been: acting. Once upon a time, as a student, he’d been a member of the drama club. He had even scored a role in a school production of Carousel. But that was before. …

  Christian found a fire door and a red sign that showed a Keith Haring–type figure descending a flight of stairs with flames roaring behind him. Shoving the door open, he began to ascend the stairs. The heavy door clanged shut behind him, the sound ringing off the concrete walls.

  Entering the third story, he found himself in a hallway identical to the one on the first floor. No art adorned the glossy white walls. He took in his surroundings and headed toward room 316. His footfalls echoed in the halls.

  When he found Jean’s office, he skidded to a stop. The door was missing, torn from its hinges and tossed someplace. On the wall, beside the nameplate that read “Doctor Jean Cowell,” someone had left a single, bloody handprint. A few dribbles had trickled from the print, etching crimson trails to the floor. Christian peered around the corner and into the old man’s office.

  “Jean?” he whispered, the sound alarming in the quiet. “Jean, are you there? It’s Christian.”

  There was no answer; he took a few steps into the room.

  “Aw, shit,” he said.

  He turned away for a few moments, swallowing bile. This was a man he’d known, and the familiarity made it a hundred times worse than any of the anonymous dead people in the streets. He felt sweat on his forehead, and he knew he had to enter the office, had to know for certain Jean was dead. Turning, he moved toward the body.

  Amidst a flurry of papers, Jean lay facedown on his desk, his balding head in a pool of crimson. The blood looked tacky; Christian reasoned that he had died much earlier in the day. The pistol he had used to shoot himself lay three inches from his right hand. A spattering of gore soaked the wall behind him; a small bullet hole in the center of the stain A book lay on the floor by Jean’s right elbow, spattered by the spray from the old man’s suicide

  Moving into the office, Christian stepped on shards of broken glass. The entire room was torn apart. If a cyclone had swept through the place, it wouldn’t have looked more chaotic.

  He took the pistol from the desk and checked for bullets: five in the chamber. He flicked it shut again, like the police on television. Even though it seemed like he was robbing a grave, he knew the gun would prove useful. He knew it was important that he arm himself.

  Could a bullet stop one of those things from last night? It seemed a feeble defense. But it was better than nothing.

  “Jean,” he said, addressing the corpse. “Why? You couldn’t wait? You couldn’t help me out? You were always there to help me out. What the hell did you do? What was so awful that you had to go and kill yourself?”

  As if in answer, he heard a voice, heavily accented, crying out down the hall. “Help me! Is somebody there? For God’s sake, help me!”

  15

  SEPTEMBER 17, 6:15 P.M.

  Chesya eyed the descending sun with a feeling of dread; then she looked over at Rick, who was smoking a cigarette. He’d smashed into the machine and nabbed several packs, two of which he had tossed into their “survival bag.” They had found a large shopping bag in the back of the diner and had packed it with cans of peaches and potted meat, along with a can opener and a loaf of bread. A six-pack of bottled water was the heaviest item, but they also scrounged several large knives, some tuna, toilet paper, matches, toothpaste, and razors from the dead couple’s medicine cabinet, a pack of aspirin, bandages, and the keys to the diner. Rick had checked the gun the couple had used to commit suicide, but the chamber was empty, so he left it behind. They each already had a gun, so one more wouldn’t help, especially if it was out of bullets. The bag was heavy, but not drastically so. It wouldn’t get in their way.

  “It’s starting to get dark out there,” Chesya warned.

  Looking up at the front door, Rick said, “We’d better get moving.”

  “I keep thinking we’ve forgotten something.”

  “Well, if we did, it can’t be too important. Let’s go.”

  They stepped out into the evening, and the cool air hit Chesya in the face, a breeze blowing on a balmy September day. She inhaled deeply, tired of the stale air of the diner, which smelled depressingly of eggs and bacon and grease. The fresh air invigorated her.

  When Rick was finished locking the door, he said, “We found this place. I don’t want to lose it if we don’t have to.”

  Chesya nodded. “It’s not too far from the bank, but I’ll feel a lot safer when we get there.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  All around them, hundreds of people milled through the stalled cars, leaning against buildings, lying supine on the hoods of vehicles. Some of them conversed intently with others, but most of them watched Rick and Chesya as they passed, their eyes asking unanswerable questions, curiosity piqued. Shadow-hiders skirted around the periphery of the scene.

  Through the maze of stalled cars, a heavyset man in a crewneck sweater chased a screaming woman. They disappeared into an alley, and a low, gurgling scream issued from the darkness. As Rick and Chesya passed, the young woman emerged, her mouth and throat streaked with fresh blood. She giggled, moving toward them.

  “Rick,” Chesya warned, and he flashed his gun.

  The woman, apparently not too regressed to understand how the pistol worked, laughed as she retreated into the alleyway.

  “You think all these people changed last night?” Chesya asked, breathing a sigh of relief.

  “I dunno. Probably most of them. Outta the whole bank staff and my crew, only you and I didn’t become creatures. Oh, and the dude I knocked out. I don’t like the odds with this many out in the open. Didn’t anyone listen to the news? They should be at home.”

  “Well, you know how people are. Most of them don’t have a lick of sense. Probably blame a liberal media bias,” she said. “What do you think will happen when it gets dark? When the moon rises again?”

  “I don’t even want to think about it,” he said. “I just wanna hole up in that vault, where it’s nice and safe, and wait for morning.”

  They passed a car that contained a family of four, windows rolled up, doors locked, radio blaring. Rick caught some of the broadcast.

  “. . . stay in your homes. If the metamorphosis happens again, you must take cover immediately. It’s not known if the process will occur again this evening, but authorities say that if you … became altered last night, if you became a … beast, then you should try to lock yourself in a room in your house. If you did not change last night, it’s suggested that you
find a safe place to hide, somewhere secure. Forget about your cars until morning. …”

  Chesya heard it, too, and she looked back at Rick. “I don’t think anyone’s paying attention to any authority,” she said.

  Some of the families, especially those with small children, began to disperse, weaving their way between cars. Most of the people on the street avoided eye contact with one another. Rick wondered if they were ashamed of the animal state they had embodied. Or were they simply embarrassed because of what they had done while they were in animal form?

  Does a beast feel shame?

  “How many more blocks?” Rick asked.

  “Two. We better step it up,” Chesya said. “It’s getting darker.”

  “It’s just the tall buildings. They block the sun. Maybe they’ll block the moonlight, too.”

  “You are really starting to think that these are werewolves, aren’t you?”

  He nodded, climbing over the hood of a car. A man shouted, “Hey! You can’t do that!” Rick ignored him, helping Chesya over the hood. The man shook his fist at them, swearing, but he did nothing to stop their progress.

  “Well, if it looks like a werewolf and acts like a werewolf …”

  “I know,” she said. “It just seems weird saying it. It’s like we suddenly found out that all those terrible things we thought were lurking under the bed were real all along. Mom lied to us. There really is a bogeyman.”

  “Yeah,” Rick said. “And the bogeyman’s been inside of us all along.”

  “I wonder how long it’s been there, waiting to be released?”

  He shrugged, shoving his way through a crowd of teenagers who were drinking beers. They looked to be about fifteen or sixteen. A few of them shouted at Rick and Chesya, but most just laughed, drunk, happy to be together. One fell on his ass, and the group roared its approval. One of the teens leaped off the car and started kicking his fallen comrade as the others cheered.

  Lighting a cigarette, Rick said, “These people …”