Bestial Read online

  Children weren’t exempt from the horrors of the night. Christian knew this better than most people.

  Moving around the doll so he wouldn’t put his foot in the stain, he continued his ascent.

  A few floors higher, he heard someone open and shut one of the fire doors that led to the stairwell. The sound clanged off the cement walls, vibrant and alarming. He couldn’t be sure whether the person was an ally or an enemy, but he knew he had little recourse except to climb higher, to reach the twenty-sixth floor, where he hoped to find Jean. He just prayed he wouldn’t meet someone on the stairs

  He wondered if the old man was even home. He could have been infected, too, could have roamed the streets, his fur a silver-tinged shade of brown, his muzzle gray. Christian wasn’t sure what he would find in the apartment.

  But it was all he had to work with. A single lifeline to grab hold of, a final straw before he took to the streets in search of other survivors. If Jean was alive, and if he wasn’t one of the beast-men, then he would be company Christian could trust. He needed a friend, needed any sort of human companionship, more and more as the hours ticked by.

  He stopped for a moment, listening to the echoes that haunted the stairway, lingering like memories almost lost to time. A shuffling overhead, a few soft footfalls, then the opening of yet another door, this one farther away from him.

  That clinched it; there was another person in the building, and it sounded as though he or she was roaming the hallways one by one, attempting to find someone, a family member, or perhaps just anyone who had managed to survive. From the staggering number of bodies in the streets, Christian was certain that at least half the human population had died last night.

  While he continued to climb the stairs, he remained wary of his surroundings. If someone attacked him, he would have to be fast, because he was thin and tired, inexperienced as a fighter. He had fled from danger many times in his brief life. Running away had become his customary manner of dealing with adversity.

  He arrived on the twenty-sixth-floor landing without incident. He was out of breath, and sweat drenched his hair and soaked through his shirt, sliding down his armpits and sides. Sitting on the top stair, he used his shirt to wipe the moisture from his face and chest. Once he caught his breath, he stood and opened the door to the hallway.

  When he first stepped into the corridor, nothing seemed askew, but as he began to walk down the quiet passage, little things caught his eye. A picture on the wall in the hallway was tilted. Another had been clawed, five neat, parallel rips. Here and there on the thick white carpet, bloodstains blossomed, poppies of past savagery.

  All the doors had been closed except Jean’s. It was gaping wide, as though someone had deserted the place in a hurry. Christian stuck his head into the doorway.

  “Hello?” he called. “Jean? You there?”

  No one answered.

  Taking a few steps into the apartment, he glanced around. The sofa had been overturned and shoved into a far corner near the kitchen, long tears in its fabric. The open kitchen was a jumble of broken glass and spoiling food that seeped from the open refrigerator. Very little meat remained. Lamps were on the floor; a dining room chair was smashed to splinters, and the windows had all been broken from the inside.

  “Jean? Hey, old man, are you there?” Deep down, he knew the old Frenchman was gone. The apartment had the appearance of a long-abandoned murder scene.

  Closing the door behind himself, he decided to take a bath and wash the night off his skin. Then maybe a bit of dinner if the food wasn’t all ruined, followed by a nap. His throbbing legs were tired from the climb, and he hadn’t slept for more than a few hours the previous night.

  The shower refreshed him, despite the chilliness of the water, and he put on a fluffy white robe that had been wadded into a ball in a corner of the bathroom. It smelled of Jean’s Old Spice cologne.

  In the kitchen, he ate soup cold from a can. It would have been better warm, but without electricity, he wasn’t sure how to heat it up without starting a fire and possibly burning the whole place down.

  Christian remained discomfited by his concern for Jean. He knew he shouldn’t feel anything for the old john, but he kept remembering little conversations they’d had when he had slept over in the big featherbed.

  “I can tell you are a smart boy,” Jean had once told him as they lay beside each other, drifting toward sleep. The man’s accent was thick. “I think you understand more about my research than you pretend. Did you like science in school?”

  “Yeah. It was probably my favorite subject.”

  “Do you know Bio-Gen? The company I work for?”

  “No. Don’t know a whole lot about the real stuff out there, just the theoretical.”

  Jean had attempted to explain his research to Christian before, but the old man sprinkled his monologues with incomprehensible scientific jargon, and Christian no longer had time to ruminate over scientific advancement. He barely had time to figure out where his next meal was coming from.

  “Well,” Jean said, “I should take you there one day, show you what I do, the vast importance of my work. I have been mapping out various aspects of the human genome, especially those that may be linked to violence in an early age. I believe I can put a stop to certain genetic psychoses, perhaps put a stop to certain kinds of violent crime. Think of it, Christian—a world without violence! I am very close to a solution. Then we shall see whether my solution is viable.”

  “I don’t think your boss would appreciate you bringing your teenage boyfriend to work. Somehow, I think the company would frown on it.”

  “But Bio-Gen is a mere four blocks away. If I keep you hidden behind me … No … no, you are correct. It would be distracting, possibly calamitous for me. Now that the work is almost finished. When I retire next year, you might consider being by my side? Huh?”

  “Uh … yeah, sure. Hey, what’s on TV tonight?”

  It was simple, uncensored pillow talk, but it got Christian thinking. Maybe the old man was at work. If he had been worried about anything, it would have been his laboratory, his experiments; he was probably shacked up in the Bio-Gen building, cleaning up what was left of his notes and beakers of mysterious chemicals.

  Only four blocks away.

  Christian tossed the robe into a corner and stepped into his jeans.

  The stairs were easier on the way down than they’d been during his ascent. Christian almost felt as if he were flying.

  12

  SEPTEMBER 17, 2:20 P.M.

  Cathy Wright looked in her backyard at the white stone garden path that ran between hydrangea bushes. Past the white and yellow gazebo, she spied the shed where the gardener kept all of his mysterious tools and the lawn mower. The shed, about twelve feet long and eight feet wide, was made of pine; ornate wrought-iron strips ran across the front of its doors. They’d purchased it because the gardener kept complaining that his rakes and hoes were going missing, the most recent victims of overprivileged kids who were bored out of their skulls and had nothing better to do. The two locks on the doors were probably overkill, but they hadn’t had an incident of theft since they’d installed it.

  “Karl,” she called. He was somewhere in the house. She didn’t care as long as he wasn’t right next to her. She was still feeling the heebie-jeebies from his confession in the morning. “Karl, come out here.”

  Opening the screen door, she stepped into the backyard, feeling a momentary and, given her circumstances, rather silly burst of pride over the flower gardens. She walked toward the shed, past the tiger lilies, listening for the steps of her husband behind her. She’d nearly reached the structure when she heard the door to the kitchen open.

  “Yeah,” Karl said, stepping outside. “What is it?”

  “I just thought of something.”

  She placed her hands on the side of the shed and shoved as hard as she could. There was a slight rocking motion, but the windowless structure appeared to be as sturdy as she had hoped. Tryi
ng again, she barely felt the wood shift.

  “The shed,” she said.

  “I can see that.” Karl’s voice conveyed a certain impatience. “What of it?”

  She turned back to him. “You and I both think you’re going to change again, right?”

  “Well … we don’t really know that. …”

  “We need to have you in a safe place, someplace where you can’t hurt me. Or anyone else, for that matter. After last night, I’m scared of being too close to you. I’m sorry, Karl, but there it is. You scare me.”

  “You want to lock me in the fucking garden shed?” His voice deepened like it always did when he was pissed off.

  “Just for the night. You didn’t change until the night, after we’d gone to bed at seven-thirty, and you reverted back to yourself in the morning, when the sun came out. Am I right about this so far?”

  “Yeah.” He rubbed his jaw, his other hand tracing small circles on the side of his thigh through his jeans.

  “Then you’ll change again tonight, when it gets dark.”

  “Probably.”

  “You’re going to come after me again, Karl. We both know it.”

  He ran his fingers through his graying, thinning hair, and deep furrows lined his forehead. “You think that little shed will hold me? I don’t remember a lot, but I do remember the power I felt, the new muscles. I was pretty damn strong.”

  She nodded. “You were. It was scary, and I don’t want to go through it again. Tell you what—we have a nice dinner, about five o’clock. Then, when dusk starts falling, I lock you in the shed.”

  “I don’t like it.” He crossed his arms, pouting like an insolent child.

  “Well, Karl, if you have a better idea, this is a good time to present it. I’m starting to get sick of all this whining and moping. You’re a hard-core litigator, a real man of business; I always thought you were tougher than this.”

  “Oh, I’m weak? Is that what you’re saying? Are you starting to take the boy’s side after all this time? ‘Poor Karl, he just can’t control himself. . . . ’”

  Not this again, Cathy thought. I can’t get into this bullshit now.

  “No,” she answered. “I’m just telling you that you’re being a baby about it. ‘Poor me, I turned into a monster.’ In case you didn’t notice, I was the one you tried to kill. I was the one who was almost a victim here. You’re going to try to eat me again. Don’t deny it, Karl. I don’t want it to happen, so I’m being proactive.”

  He looked at her a moment, and the creases in his forehead lessened, then vanished. His hand stopped its incessant circling motion against his leg.

  “I’m an ass,” he mumbled.

  She moved to his side, took his hand in hers. Softening her voice, she said, “No, you’re just messed up. I’d be just as confused had I been the one affected. Still, it wasn’t me, and I don’t fancy turning into werewolf chow. We need to keep me protected, and you need to be restrained from harming anyone. Maybe the shed can do that for us.” Cathy glanced at the structure. She didn’t think it was sturdy enough to contain him, but at least it was an option.

  Options were getting harder to come by in this freakish new world.

  Nodding, he said, “Okay. We’ll try it, but I want you locked in the house as well. Lock every door and window—”

  “Some of them are smashed,” she reminded him.

  “Well, then. We’d best be getting to work boarding them up. Come on, Cathy. We’ll pretend it’s a new home improvement project we’re working on.”

  Leading her into the house, he resisted the itching beneath his skin. Cathy, in turn, pretended not to notice his twitching fingers.

  They began to board up the windows, the hammer falls echoing throughout Indian Hill. They almost sounded like gunshots.

  13

  SEPTEMBER 17, 3:45 P.M.

  Chesya peered over the counter to the window; the name of the diner, printed backward from her angle, partially obscured her view of the street.

  The place still reeked of grease from their last meal, and a slice of half-eaten apple pie lay before her.

  Sitting on the other side of the counter, Rick shoveled the last of his own extra-large slice into his mouth. He dropped the fork and looked up at her, noticing her stillness.

  “What?” he asked, mouth still half full.

  “There are people out there. And I don’t mean the crazy people, but couples and families. They’re just … walking around. Like zombies or shell-shocked soldiers. I just noticed them.”

  “Probably just now daring to come outside.” He brushed his face with his napkin, feeling the rough stubble of his beard beneath the paper.

  The television played in the background, a constant buzz. Occasionally, they heard some new tidbit of information from the news anchor, who had remained in his chair all day. There were no commercials. Even the money-grubbing networks seemed to acknowledge that this was a state of emergency.

  They had hung up the useless phone in the corner of the place, and they nervously awaited any kind of ring. From time to time, one of them checked it for a dial tone, to no avail.

  “The doors are locked, right?” Rick asked.

  Chesya nodded. “Checked them a few minutes ago.”

  “You think there’ll be problems?”

  “People are bound to act according to their worst natures. They want to get food for their families, someplace safe for the night. Some fools’ll try to make some money out of this situation—looting, stealing. Who knows?”

  As they watched, a young man with a beard pulled a blond woman alongside. They looked around, as though dazed. The woman was pregnant.

  “I hate ignoring them like this,” Chesya said, sitting opposite Rick. “Especially when we have food to spare.”

  “Well, we have it now. It isn’t going to last. Much as we want to, we can’t just let anyone walk in off the street for a free lunch.”

  “It would be the Christian thing to do.”

  “It’d be the stupid thing to do,” Rick said. “You let people in here, we’ll have dozens of them, and who’s to say which ones are all right and which ones will try to hurt us, try to take away what we found? This is our restaurant. We found it, cleared out the bodies. I lay claim to it.”

  “That woman was pregnant.”

  “There’s plenty of food for them out there,” Rick said. “I’m more worried about who’s going to change into those monsters. We don’t even know when they’ll do it.”

  “The news said it happens at night, when the moon is shining. Something about a reaction to moonlight.”

  “You believe everything you hear on TV? Especially now?”

  “No,” she replied.

  “Good. As far as anyone knows right now, that’s the truth, but I don’t wanna risk it. Do you?”

  She shook her head, staring down into the remains of her pie. “No.” Her voice cracked.

  “That’s right. You wanna bring in a dozen people, hell, five people, and have them change on us in here? We got a padlocked back door and one way out the front. Options are pretty limited.”

  “I still don’t like it. It feels … mean, somehow.”

  He moved around the counter, put a hand on her shoulder. He was surprised to find it shaking. “I know,” he said. “I don’t like it much either. But we need to be sure. Neither of us became creatures last night. We’re certain that we’re each safe to be around. Anyone else, I want to watch them first, watch them sit in the moonlight and not change. Then, and only then, will I trust them.”

  Chesya had to admit it made sense, but as she watched the numbed survivors marching blindly down the street, she felt a deep pang of guilt. A family strode by, two little girls holding hands. One of the girls, her eyes glazed with shock, turned her head and looked into the dimness of the diner. She raised her hand in a halfhearted wave. Chesya started to wave back, but the child had passed from sight.

  “So what do we do, Rick? You planning on staying here all day,
boarding up the windows? I saw that in an old black-and-white zombie flick, and it didn’t work for the people then. I don’t think it’ll work now. Those things were so strong. They got themselves killed doing just what we’re doing—watching television.”

  “I thought we’d head for the bank again. Lock ourselves in the vault. You said there were a couple of days left on the battery’s power.”

  “It was safe there,” she agreed.

  “Nothing’s going to get through all that steel, not even those damn werewolves … bears … whatever the hell they are.”

  A chill ran through her. “I don’t like it, getting locked in like that. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll do it to save my life. But it gives me the willies.”

  “How do you think I feel?” he asked. “I went bat shit in there last night. But I don’t see a lot of other options.”

  The news anchor droned on. “I’ve just been handed an update. Police officials have contracted several tow-truck companies to clear the streets. If you have an automobile parked or trapped in traffic, please find the car and remain near it. If an owner is with his or her car, they will not tow it to storage. If your car is towed, it will be safely stored in a nearby field or yard. Your local police station will have details as to which cars went to which holding place. It may take several days, but the roads will soon be clear of debris. Authorities also wish to warn that if you have family, keep them near at all times. The police highly recommend that you do not wait with your car through the day. If you have an automobile trapped in traffic, it will be towed to a safe area, and you can reclaim it when officials decide it is safe. This should take no more than a day or two, and we suggest everyone go home and wait until the tow trucks have cleared all streets. Do not separate from your family. More details will follow.