They Thirst Part 41

"I want to write the story. I think I can. I don't know where I'll sell it-I don't know if it can be sold-but I have to get out of here, first-"

"Excuse me, please," he said uneasily. "There are others I have to attend to." He started to move away, but Gayle said, "I'm not asking you to help me," and he stopped. "I'm asking you if it can be done."

"You've never served in the military, have you?"

"Screw it! I don't want to hear about who ordered what, or what's cla.s.sified and what isn't. All that I can get on my own. I'm talking to you as one human being to another, and don't try to put the military between us. Believe me, I won't be doing any talking to the reporters outside." Her eyes gleamed fiercely. "I've lived this story, and it's mine." Lott paused, started to walk away again, and then looked back at her. He drew once more on his cigarette, and then crushed it out in the cup. His brow deeply furrowed, he walked back toward Gayle, set the cup on the windowsill, and pulled up the Venetian blind. Gayle saw a startingly clear azure sky, the sun blazing down on white sands, gray mountains, stucco buildings, and concrete roadways.

Three large green and brown variegated trucks loaded with people bound for other barracks across the base moved past the window. Gayle caught some of their haggard, dazed expressions. She could see a couple of helicopters sweeping in across the desert from the east; they pa.s.sed overhead, rotors faintly chukking.

Lott was quiet for a very long time, his eyes deep-set and brooding. "I've been a Marine for almost twenty years, miss. The corps is my life. I have a duty to obey orders. If the base is secured, I have to do my best to keep it secured. Do you understand that?" He looked at Gayle, waiting for a reply.

"Yeah," Gayle said. "But I'd say you had a duty to something else, wouldn't you? Or do you wear those for show?"

"Of course," he continued without any hint that he'd ever heard what she'd just said, "this is a very large base, almost 930 square miles of desert, mountains, and lava rock. There are supply sheds, warehouses, garages, dozens of places to hide. A stockade, too. That's a place of interest where the Sh.o.r.e Patrol puts all the Marines who go AWOL, and I've counseled quite a few. Well, with L.A. on one side and Las Vegas on the other, what can you expect? I remember a boy who went AWOL, I think his name was Patterson, from ... oh Indiana, Ohio, somewhere like that. He'd gone over the hill because his girl of two or three years was getting married, and he wanted to stop the wedding. He didn't make it home, and he didn't stop the wedding, but he did get off the base. He stole a jeep and headed east, across twenty-five miles of country so hostile even the snakes avoid it. Helicopters patrol that area during the day, and there are observation towers equipped with searchlights. Some of that eastern area's too rough even to run a fence across, and in other places the wind keeps the sand piled up into dunes so high that somebody who wanted to go AWOL could just walk right out and away. Nearest road wouldn't be too far, maybe two or three miles. Patterson went at night. Of course, he had a map and a compa.s.s, and I imagine he drove with his lights out. It's dangerous country. If he'd gotten lost out there, the Sh.o.r.e Patrol might not've found anything but his bones. I don't know how he got that jeep, but . . . well, there are so many vehicles here, sometimes a single jeep can go missing for a couple of days without anyone knowing. Hercules coming in." He pointed toward the sky, and Gayle saw a lumbering aircraft, the kind that had brought her and Jo to the base last night, dropping smoothly toward the airstrip a few miles away.

"Beautiful plane," Lott said. "Works like a mule. Sometimes people get careless and forget where they've left their jeeps, even leave the keys in the ignition. With all the confusion and civilians here right now, I wouldn't be surprised if someone parked a jeep behind this barracks tonight and completely forgot about it until tomorrow morning. Of course, the SPs will be patrolling tonight. They'd probably find it and tow it in if it wasn't gone after 2200 hours. That's ten o'clock, civilian time. Check?" He looked at her, his gaze deliberately vacant.

"Check," she said. "And thank you."

He seemed puzzled. "For what? Oh, the cigarettes. You're very welcome. Now if you'll excuse me, there are others I'd better see to. If you're hungry, the nearest mess hall is just over on Flag Square. You'll see the signs." He left her without a backward glance, moving through the bunks to where a man sat with his hands to his face, his back stooped like a question mark. TWO In the crowded, noisy mess hall, Jo peeled the top off a paper cup of orange juice that had Red Cross stenciled across the side and forced herself to drink it. It tasted weak and chalky, but it was the first thing in her stomach since the slice of ham between two pieces of moldy bread she'd eaten during the night when she, Andy, and Gayle had been trapped in that house. The orange juice churned in her stomach; she thought it might come up. She doubted if anything would ever taste the same again, if anything would ever be the same again. The world had tilted, and everything she'd ever believed in had gone sliding off into black nothingness. Her eyes burned with tears and the need for sleep, but she was all cried out, and trying to sleep was a torment. She couldn't believe that Andy was dead. She refused to believe it. When she had finally slept last night, she'd had a strange dream in which she'd been walking along a dark twisting road, just the faintest glimmer of reddish light on the horizon. She'd walked alone for what seemed like miles, then suddenly she was aware of someone walking with her. It was Nina Palatazin, her face gray and wrinkled but her eyes more sharp and alert than Jo ever remembered seeing them.

The old woman walked with difficulty, but her spine was straight, and she held her chin high. Finally she'd spoken in a voice that seemed faint and faraway, like the soft murmur of a cool desert wind.

"This road goes on, child," she'd said. "It's not an easy road; it's not a safe road. But you can't step off it, and you can't stop. It goes both ways-out of the past and into the future. There's more ahead for Andy. Much more. You'll have to be prepared, and you'll have to be strong. Can you be?" The old woman looked at her sharply, and Jo saw that her form seemed to be undulating, s.h.i.+mmering like silk.

"He's dead. The vampires took him, or the storm, or the earthquake . . ."

"Do you really believe that?"

"I ... don't want to believe it."

"Then hope" the old woman insisted. "And don't ever stop because once that's gone, you might as well sit down right here and never move again."

"He's dead," Jo said quietly. "Isn't he? Can't you tell me?"

"I can tell you that he lives, that he's hurt and tired, that he's coming to you soon. But isn't that only what you want to hear?"

"Yes," Jo said uneasily.

"The road goes on," the old woman said. "It promises nothing except a journey, from birth to death. He's not going to need me anymore. It's you who'll have to go the rest of the way with him, by the will of G.o.d. Oh, look at that!" She stared off toward the horizon, her gaunt face lit by the soothing reddish glow, like the warming touch of a distant, comforting hearth. "The night's almost over," she said. "It's going to be daylight soon, very soon. Oh, I'm tired now .

. ." She looked past Jo, out across a dark plain. "I think I want to rest for a while, in that peaceful place. But you have to keep going, Jo. Both of you do."

The old woman stared at her for a few seconds, then stepped off the road and began walking away into the distance. Jo watched her disappear out of sight, and at the last moment, she broke up into fragments of white light that pulsated and then vanished, whipped away by the wind. Jo walked on, s.h.i.+vering. But now the light had gotten stronger, and she knew she couldn't stop, couldn't turn back.

Darkness lapped at her heels, and there was nothing to do but meet the sun. Soon after that she'd awakened.

Since dawn Jo had stood at the airstrip with a few hundred other people, watching the big planes come in. Trucks and ambulance vans rolled across the tarmac to carry away both the survivors and the injured. Jo knew that many thousands had been taken to Fort Irwin and Edwards Air Force Base, too, and that the names of all the survivors would be a long time coming. If Fate had swept Andy's life away, she chose to believe that he'd found the vampire king after all and had plunged an ash stake deeply into its unholy heart. She reached up to her throat and touched the tiny crucifix Andy had bought for her. It seemed very important that she wear it now.

She'd heard the rumors circulating from the new arrivals-a million dead, possibly more. L.A. under one hundred feet of ocean. The waves littered with bodies and debris. The vampires shriveled, burned, gone, melted into hideous black forms that smoked and sizzled like hot fat in a huge frying pan. But there were the rumors of miracles as well. Houses ripped up and washed to safety on the boiling crests of tidal waves. Hundreds of survivors found by the Marine helicopters and Navy rescue craft, clinging to the remnants of roofs, wooden planks, overturned boats, and the barely exposed islands of L.A."s tallest buildings. The thousands who had braved the vampires and the choking sand to head across the canyons on foot, escaping into the Santa Monica Mountains before the earthquake struck. Rumors of premonitions, heroism, breaks of luck that had saved hundreds from certain death. Encounters with strange figures in the sandstorm who had led families and groups of survivors to safety at higher elevations and then had inexplicably disappeared. Raw, rugged endurance, and an anger that had kept people going, one step at a time, until the danger was past.

Now, sitting at a table with a young couple and an older family who looked as sh.e.l.l-shocked as any war veterans, Jo drank down the rest of her orange juice and looked out the window beside her. She could see one of those large transport planes coming in for a landing, and another starting to circle the field, the sun s.h.i.+ning off it like a silver coin. The survivors were still coming in, thank G.o.d, she told herself. Hope was beginning to gather within her again, crackling like a fire that had almost burned out. She mustn't let it. Now she had to hope and pray that Andy was aboard one of those planes and was somehow, somewhere safe.

A woman with curly brown hair and very tired-looking dark eyes sat down across from Jo. She had a cup of black coffee, and she was wearing a spotted white smock. Her name tag with a red cross on it said OWENS. The woman-a Red Cross doctor or nurse, Jo reasoned-sipped at her coffee, closed her eyes for a few seconds, and then opened them again, staring out the window at the incoming planes.

"I know it must be difficult," Jo said.

The woman looked at her and nodded. "Yes. Very. Red Cross medical personnel are here from four different states, but still . . . we're low on whole blood, metaraminol, dextran . . . well, a lot of things. We're seeing a lot of shock cases. You're from the L.A. area?"

"That's right, yes."

"I can see it in your eyes. Was it ... bad for you?" Jo nodded.

"I'm sorry." The woman cleared her throat and looked around the crowded mess hall, then back to Jo. "I flew in from Arizona last night. I had no idea there would be this many people."

"I hope there are more," Jo said. "I suppose you've . . . heard everything by now?"

"Uh-uh." She lifted a warning hand. "I'm not supposed to discuss anything I might have overheard. Orders."

"Oh, of course." Jo smiled wanly and looked away. The military didn't want any information or rumors or old wives' tales getting off the base. Of course. The rest of the nation had to be protected from hearing about the things in the night. Anger flamed her face, but she was too weary to let it out.

"That's very pretty," the woman said.

"Pardon me?"

She touched her throat. "Your chain and crucifix. I've been seeing a lot of those today. As a matter of fact, I just came out of surgery on a man who'd swallowed one of them. It was giving his lower intestine fits, and it wasn't going to come out the easy way. Yours is about the same size."

"Oh." Jo turned in her chair. A Red Cross helicopter chattered over the mess hall, bound for the airstrip. It was time for her to get back there now, to maintain her vigil. She had to know, one way or the other. "Well," she said, and rose to her feet, "I'd better make room for someone else."

"It was good talking with you, Mrs. . . ."

"Palatazin," she said. "It's Hungarian." She started to turn away and then stopped. "Thank you for being here. Thank you for helping."

"I hope I have helped," the woman said.

Jo left the table and moved toward the mess hall door. She stepped outside into the clear sunlight, and in the distance she could see the huge, sprawling tent city that had been set up to house more survivors and most of the Marine personnel. Trucks and jeeps drove among them, stirring up lazy whirls of dust. More planes were circling the airstrip, and now she felt the need to hurry.

"Just a minute," someone said behind her. Jo turned to face the Red Cross lady.

"What did you say your name was?"

Her heart began beating a little harder. "Palatazin."

"My G.o.d," the woman said softly. "I just... I ... thought that crucifix looked the same. That man . . . he's . . . your husband?"

Jo was shocked speechless. Her lips worked for a few seconds before she could get the name out. "Andy?" she whispered. She began to cry, and Dr. Owens put an arm around her shoulder and quickly led her to a parked jeep. They drove to a white stucco building being used as a Red Cross facility. The first room that Jo-trembling, afraid that the doctor had made a terrible mistake and that this wasn't her Andy at all-entered was full of chairs and tables, cots and sleeping bags, a makes.h.i.+ft waiting room crammed with people. She heard Tommy's high, clear voice shout "HEY!" before she saw him, and when he stood up from a chair across the room, her knees went weak. And then she was running toward him, laughing and crying at the same time. She hugged him tightly, unable to say a word. Someone else, a man with a dirty beard and a filthy T-s.h.i.+rt, stood up, too. The waves of stench that he exuded had kept people away from him in a ten-foot radius.

"We thought you were dead!" Tommy said, his eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears. He looked fine to Jo, just fine, but there were lines in his face that had no business being there. "We thought the earthquake had gotten both of you!"

"No, no. How did you get out?"

"Our gas ran out. We had to spend the night up in a cave in the mountains. There were about twenty others there, too. The shocks kept coming, all night. Then we heard helicopters, and they found us with their searchlights just before dawn.

Then we ... G.o.d, I'm glad to see you!"

"Andy," Jo said, and looked at Dr. Owens. "Is he all right?" The woman's eyes darkened. "We got that obstruction out of him about an hour ago, but he was. . . very despondent. It was a relatively simple operation, but he wanted to give up on us a couple of times there." She glanced at Tommy, then back to Jo. "I think he went through a very rough time."

"We found him," Tommy said, his voice knotted with new tension. A chill skittered quickly up his spine. Ever since they'd been flown in on a C-130 Hercules several hours before, when Palatazin's stomach had started cramping, he couldn't get over the feeling that something with burning eyes was still stalking them, staying just behind them and out of sight. He was sure his days of watching horror movies were over. Now he was going to be a comedy freak.

"Up in the castle," he said. "The Master."

"Truth in a teacup!" the bearded man said. "The bloodsuckers were swarmin' up there!"

"Is it over?" she asked Tommy, but the boy couldn't reply. A Red Cross nurse and a stocky man in a white uniform came through a pair of doors behind Jo and approached them. The nurse said, "This is the one, right here," and pointed toward the bearded man. "He's dirty enough to start a lice farm and he refuses to take a shower. I've told him he can't stay in the infirmary area, Dr. Whitcombe, but-"

"A shower?" the bearded man said, and looked helplessly at Tommy.

"You heard her. Jesus, you're rank!" The doctor clamped a large hand on Ratty's shoulder. "Listen, we've got enough problems here without plague. You coming along or do I call the SPs?"

"A shower?" he repeated incredulously.

"Yep. With Lava soap. Let's go."

Ratty muttered and started walking, his shoulders slumped in resignation. At the doors he stopped and said to Tommy, "Keep the faith, little dude." When the doctor gripped his arm again, Ratty looked haughtily at him, pulled free, and then was gone through the doors.

"I want to see my husband," Jo said finally to Dr. Owens. "Right now."

"All right. He's upstairs." She nodded toward a stairway that had 3 desk pulled beside it where a couple of nurses were sorting folders. A sign on the desk read No Admittance Beyond This Point.

When Jo looked back at him, Tommy said, "I'll wait. I won't go anywhere." Jo nodded and followed Dr. Owens up the stairs. Her heart was pounding as they walked along a concrete-floor corridor with a series of large rooms on either side. The place looked like it had been used for cla.s.ses because there were a lot of desks piled out in the hallway. Now the building had been turned into a makes.h.i.+ft hospital. Jo could see the beds through the open doors, six or more to a room. Nurses and doctors hurried about, pus.h.i.+ng gurneys or carts filled with equipment.

"He'll still be pretty groggy," Dr. Owens warned her, "and I doubt if he'll make much sense. But I'm sure seeing you will make him feel a whole lot better." She stopped, checking a sheet of paper taped to the wall beside one of the doors. On it was a list of six names. "A. Palatazin," Dr. Owens read.

"Good thing your name is one of those that you don't for-" She turned, realizing that Jo had already stepped past her into the room. Dr. Owens saw no need to linger. There was still a lot of work to do.

Jo stood in the room, looking from bed to bed. In the dim light that filtered through drawn blinds, she saw only strangers, people asleep, a couple of them wearing casts. One of them, a young woman, moaned softly in her sleep. She had a sudden crazy thought-What if Andy wasn't here at all? What if the records had been mixed up? The doctor wrong? Everything gone topsy-turvy in the confusion?

And then she looked over at the bed across the room just underneath the window and took a tentative step forward. No. That couldn't be Andy lying there, hooked up to IV tubes and a bag of blood. That was a much older man, his face ashen white against the pillow. She took another step. He was covered over by a dark blue blanket, but she could see a crisscrossing of bandages at his throat just under his chin, and she put a hand to her mouth to stifle a cry. In another bed a young black man stirred uneasily, his arm and leg in casts connected to a series of lines and pulleys. He opened his eyes, stared at her for a few seconds, then closed them again with a soft sigh. Jo stood over Andy and traced a finger across his cheek. His face, as pale as it was, seemed beautiful to her. There seemed to be much more gray in his curly halo of hair. She reached under the blanket and sheet, found his wrist, and felt the pulse beating there. It was weak, as fragile as the preciousness of life itself. But what a marvelous thing it was, what a wonder. Life was achingly short, but that was the challenge of it-to do the best with it in the time allowed, to age and change and grow. And that was something the Undead could never do. That was a gift denied them.

Andy's fingers moved. She grasped his hand, wouldn't let go. His eyes slowly opened. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, then turned his head toward her with obvious effort. When he focused on her, he said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, "Jo?"

"It's me. It's me," she said. "I'm here, Andy. Everything's all right now. I'm alive. Gayle's alive. And thank G.o.d, so are you . . ."

"Alive?" he whispered. "No, it's a dream . . ." She shook her head, tears br.i.m.m.i.n.g from her eyes. "It's real, Andy. The Marines came and took us out before the earthquake started. Tommy told me what happened."

"Tommy? Where is he?" He blinked, unsure whether he was dreaming or not.

"Downstairs. He's fine."

Palatazin stared at her for a long moment, then his face collapsed like the shattering of a mirror. He took her hand in both of his and pressed it to his lips. "Oh, G.o.d," he whispered. "You're not dead . . . you're not dead . . ."

"It's all right," Jo said softly, and ran a hand over his forehead and into his hair. "Everything's going to be fine now, you'll see . . ." It was another minute or so before he could speak again, and then only in a quiet, faraway voice that told her he was trying desperately to hang on to consciousness. "The vampires," he said. "They're gone."

"Gone? How?"

"The ocean. The salt.w.a.ter. It roared in and ... I think some of them must've gotten out, but not many ... not many. I think-I hope-their king is dead. I didn't see him after the quake started, but . . ." He remembered Father Silvera and the young man and the female vampire who had found the strength to deny her own existence and thus had saved both him and Tommy. He would pray for all of them because they'd all been brave, and the combination of their actions had helped stop the advance of the vampiric army. He thought that Father Silvera might have survived, but he doubted it. He was certain the priest had died fighting, and that the king vampire had been destroyed either in the collapse of the castle or by that huge, swirling cauldron of salt.w.a.ter. If not... Palatazin closed his eyes. He couldn't think about that possibility, not yet. But for now the cancerous spread of them had been halted.

"What are we going to do now?" Jo asked him.

He opened his eyes. "We go on," he said. "We find another place to live. We put what's happened behind us. But we don't forget. They didn't think we were so strong. They didn't think we could even fight back. But we did. And we can again if we have to." He paused, then smiled slightly. "Think I can find that chief of police job in some little town now? A very long way from here."

"Yes," she said softly, and returned his smile. "I know you can." He nodded. "I'm . . . not going to be the same for a while, Jo. You're going to have to help me understand and . . . deal with what's happened . . ."

"I will."

"And Tommy, too," he said. "His parents are gone, he's still not even sure what happened to him that night, or how he got to us. Maybe it's . . . best that he never remembers, but I thing someday he will. We'll both have to be strong for him."

"Yes," she promised.

He squeezed her hand and kissed it. "My good Jo," he whispered. "Strong like a rock."

"I won't leave you," she told him. "I'll sleep downstairs on the floor if I have to, but I won't leave until you're on your feet again."

"G.o.d save the doctor who tries to throw you out," Palatazin said. And looking up at her s.h.i.+ning face, he knew there were things he should tell her, but he couldn't, not yet. He knew the vampires were gone, yes, but the Evil that had created them and given them power lived on, somewhere in the darkest limits, where the world trembled between night and day, where the things that ruled the court of midnight held sway. The Evil would be back, in some different form perhaps, but with the same terrible purpose. It had learned a lesson this time and was not likely to repeat its mistake.

And his father stalked the monastery ruins atop Mount Jaeger along with the other grinning things from his boyhood village. Someday his father would have to find release, all of them would, and Palatazin felt sure that if it were not his own hand that guided the stake, then it would be someone else's, perhaps. . .

Tommy's hand, grown older and stronger and wiser. But those were all things of the future, and he didn't want to think about them just yet. Palatazin's vision was blurring around the edges. Jo had never looked more beautiful; life had never seemed more precious a gift.

"I love you," he said.

"I love you." She leaned over and kissed his cheek, a tear falling from her face onto his, and when she lifted her head, she saw he'd gone back to sleep.

THREE.

At exactly ten o'clock Gayle quietly left her bunk in the barracks and made her way to the door. There were still people awake and whispering in the darkness, but they paid her no attention. A child cried out suddenly, awakened from a nightmare, and Gayle heard a woman's voice whispering soothingly as she reached the door and slipped out into the cool desert darkness. Stars blazed in the sky, but there was no moon, a fact Gayle was grateful for. Only a few figures moved along the road. Spare lights burned in other barracks, and an occasional cigarette glowed in the night. She was rounding the far side of the building when she was caught by the bright white glow of headlights. A jeep carrying two SPs rolled to a halt beside her, and she stopped immediately.

"Ten o'clock curfew, miss," one of them said. "Hadn't you heard?"

"Oh, a curfew? I'm sorry, I didn't know I was breaking any rules. I've just been out walking for a while, to think."

"Uh-huh. What barracks are you a.s.signed to, please?"