The 1000 Souls (Book 2): Generation Apocalypse (24 page)

They moved into a trendy neighborhood, passing the entrance to a parking lot with a sign proclaiming
MARKET SQUARE
. Kayla remembered when stores like Pier 1 Imports and Pottery Barn were shopping opportunities that a kid from a small town considered exotic. The office buildings of downtown rose in the far distance, and the black hulk of the Willis Tower, a marvel to visit when she was fourteen, dwarfed all rivals.

“That’s where he is.” Tevy must have noted that it grabbed her attention. She nodded and returned to her scrutiny of closer threats. “Vlad Who Bleeds.”

“We’ll have to go get him, won’t we?” Kayla said, and for a moment a desire to flee came upon her, to just run back to St. John’s and the safety of the woods and the river and the Mattagami Bridge. Barry should just blow it down and they should shut out the rest of the world.

“Like the Battle of the Mountain.” Tevy’s voice held a strange awe now. What did he see in that tower? “We have to go and get the Vlads. They never come out to fight.”

They heard the engine before they saw the truck, a 4x4 with a machinegun in the back, racing toward them, very much like the truck at St. John’s with the fifty cal.

“That’s Emile’s!” shouted Elliot as Kayla unslung her Uzi. “Don’t shoot.”

They had less than a minute and she wasn’t finished her interview with Tevy. There was no time left for subtly. “We got a deal. You going to keep this a secret from Bobs?”

Tevy didn’t answer right away, but as Amanda and Elliot rushed to join them, he leaned in and whispered, “Okay. I don’t see how it could help Bobs. But no more secrets between us.”

Even as Kayla nodded and watched the truck rush up, she knew she was already breaking the promise, for she would never tell him that as he had leaned close, the scent of his sweat erotic rather than repugnant, she had an overwhelming desire to embrace him, to touch his body, to meld. He was eight years younger, a seventeen-year-old teenager who wouldn’t be old enough to drink in pre-apocalypse Canada let alone America. He hadn’t shaved at least since yesterday and still the stubble was soft, not demanding attention. Yet she sensed something in him that she craved, that meshed with her complicated persona. That was when she knew the Ericsian faith was true. He was the Dormant Hero, and she was destined to love him.

Luckily, he seemed oblivious.

Tevy watched Kayla go with Joyce to Emile’s blockhouse, the first and strongest one north of the church, one of the few buildings within a hundred yards that hadn’t been bulldozed during the days of Vlad the Scourge. It surprised him how much he wanted to go with her, to be near her—not like sex or anything weird. She was twenty-five, after all, and yet the idea of sleeping beside her, knowing that they had each others’ back, that would be a sound sleep.

But despite his exhaustion, the summons was urgent. Emile, delighted to see them, had sped them back to St Mike’s, laughing and proud that Tevy had been sent as a messenger and not only formed an alliance but provoked and won a battle against a ripper fortress. They’d heard all about it by radio from the Ericsians right after dawn.

“You’re just like Bert,” Emile said, waving a fat finger. “You won’t give them time to settle down and build up, you go right after them right away.”

Kayla had given him a very significant look at that point, but Tevy shook his head, begging her to keep quiet about the Ericsians and their newfound belief that he hosted a portion of the same soul as Bertrand Allan. Kayla nodded in response to Tevy’s unspoken plea, and the tit for tat wasn’t lost on him. He now had a secret he didn’t want Bobs hearing, just like Kayla and Joyce.

He headed into the rectory through the back door, avoiding the church and morning mass, something he was usually required to attend. Elliot knuckle knocked and yawned before splitting away to go the basement and their dorms. Tevy hoped he could soon follow, for the exhaustion was heavy, and the chicken sandwiches, sent by Helen, that Emile had handed them in the truck had only started to fill the hole.

A knock at the bishop’s conference room door brought an immediate invitation to enter. Tevy found Bobs standing at one end of the table, maps spread out, and Colonel Webb, dressed in gray camouflage, standing beside her, one finger on the map as they talked. Tevy wondered if the man would ever age, for he looked just as Tevy remembered him when he was ten: his gray hair brush-cut short, and his body as trim as any athlete, even though the sun and worry had weathered his face.

Bobs looked delighted. “That’s my man! I knew I could count on you.”

They were only using a fraction of the polished table, and for a moment Tevy had the crazy idea that he might lie down on the unused portion and get some sleep.

“We took a high school,” Tevy said. He cursed the stupidity of the statement, for it hadn’t been a high school in well over seven years.

Colonel Webb moved around the table, one hand extended. “You did excellent work, young man. We didn’t know about that ripper fortress yet, and it could’ve been a real problem, especially if they hit us by surprise.”

Tevy shook the man’s hand, wondering if this is what it was like to meet a rock star, for to him Webb was a star, the man who had kept the country’s nukes out of ripper hands, who still defended the last operational air force base in America. He’d seen Webb on many occasions, of course, but the man had barely acknowledged Tevy’s existence.

Bobs poured red wine into three crystal glasses, handing one to each. “To taking the initiative,” she said, raising hers in toast.

Tevy sipped the liquid, tasting mustiness and sour grapes. He didn’t understand why everyone liked alcohol so much. After tasting beer, hooch, and wine, he still preferred milk, or better yet, that rare treat: apple juice. Orange and grape juice were distant memories, although cans of flavored soda helped keep the memory alive, despite getting harder to find every year.

“Sit and tell us about the battle.” Webb took a seat himself and gestured to the chair at the head of the table.

Bobs slid a map of Chicago over the map of America that she and Webb were looking at when Tevy arrived. She took a seat on his left and pointed to a grid on the map. “Hairy High, right? Funny, I graduated from there just before the end. Tell us what happened.”

Tevy told them of Radu’s capture, of meeting the Ericsians, and of convincing Mabruke that an immediate attack would take the rippers by surprise. He left out the soul determination test and its results. He left out finding Radu in the school. He considered a lie, but just made no mention of him. Neither the Colonel nor Bobs asked, perhaps because Radu was from St. John’s and meant nothing to them.

“And the St. John’s people.” Bobs sat back with her wine glass, studying Tevy in a way that made his ears burn, as if she bored holes into his brain with her eyes. “Can they be trusted to hold a line?”

“They fight damn well.” He told them about his rescue and the fight in the woods. For a moment he almost slipped, nearly telling them about the part where a ripper started killing rippers, but he caught himself in time, focusing on how brave Kayla and Radu had been holding the line.

“Yeah, she sounds like she could be useful. Too bad he bought it.”

Webb looked more thoughtful, as if he sensed something was missing from Tevy’s account, but more important things must’ve have been on his mind. “Good work,” he said. “I think we should send this young soldier to bed before he falls asleep in that good wine.”

But something about the way he looked at Bobs caught Tevy’s attention. Did he want to talk about Tevy after he was gone? Tevy stood up and gave handshakes again. Webb showed him how to salute and promised to put him through basic training, and in moments the heavy oak door shut him in the corridor.

Tevy didn’t leave. Bobs always sent him into the city to listen, and it had become a habit, and he was very good at being quiet. After walking as loudly down the carpeted corridor as he could, and slamming the door to the stairwell for good measure, he crept back to the conference room and placed an ear near the door jam. Their voices were raised—a civil debate but a tense discussion.

“We have to use them sometime. Who knows if they even work?” That was Bobs.

“There are a lot of innocent Americans in those cities. I simply can’t accept killing them in all good conscience.”

“Then you can accept a country run by the rippers?”

“No!”

“Colonel, you know you’re really the top ranking military officer left in America. You know this is up to us. You’ve been polite and very political to keep your rank and all, but there’s no one to promote you or give you orders except me. You’re the frigging general of the army, navy, and air force, and I’m the closest thing you’ve got to a commander in chief. The president is a fucking ripper, and if you’d listened to him eight years ago, you would be too.”

“But to strike our own people. It’s evil.”

“They’re not our people.” Bobs shouted this, and Tevy could picture her angry eyes, imagine her fist striking the table. “They don’t just feed the rippers, they’re up here now to fight. Even with the Bradleys and all the outliers I’ve called up, we might not be able to hold them off. But let’s say we do, best-case scenario, keep them from overrunning all the Loyalist strongholds north of the Loop. They’ll just come back again with even more numbers, and this Vlad, this Vlad Who Bleeds, he won’t be taken like Vlad the Scourge. Fuck, how many Vlads are out there anyway? And don’t think they won’t take Malmstrom eventually. They’ll be coming for you again.”

“Malmstom will hold for a time.” But now the Colonel did sound old and weary to Tevy, the years catching up with his soul if not his body.

“You’re running out of parts and you’re holding on to that base out of nostalgia. Soon nothing will fly out of there no matter what. It’s time to use what we have and abandon it. You bring every soldier you’ve got and come and join us here in Chicago. Together we’ll be strong, but we have to eliminate the ripper’s source of supply.”

“By killing millions of innocent civilians?”

Bobs’ shout was loud enough that Tevy drew back from the door. “They are not innocent! They’re feeding the rippers and they’re working as slaves. Those are still organized countries out east and west, but organized around Vlad’s new world order. They still have food, and they starve anyone not with them. They’ve starved the whole Midwest and most of the south into non-existence. Millions dead. What’s so fucking innocent about that?”

There was a long pause, and Tevy prepared to hurry away. What if they were coming to the door, finished their debate? But then Webb spoke, his voice low, again indicating the weariness that seemed to have overtaken him. “I see your point. It really is over. I’d always hoped that maybe something could be salvaged, that maybe people would rise up against the rippers as we did, but there’s certainly no sign that’s ever going to happen.”

“Three nukes,” said Bobs. “Los Angeles, New York, and Washington. It’ll gut all of the rippers’ supplies in one shot, and it’ll destroy all command and control. Then the remaining people can rise up like you hoped. Then we can complete the revolution.”

Tevy’s hand covered his mouth to prevent a gasp.

There was silence.

Finally Webb answered. “Three nukes.”

Tevy fled.

Tevy had never been to Los Angles, New York or Washington, but as he sat on the rafters of the bell tower above the clock, he tried to recall every movie he had seen that featured those cities. Los Angeles was sprawling and huge, New York dense and high. Of Washington he only remembered shots of the White House and secret agents. In movies the president was sometimes a hero and sometimes a villain, but since Tevy’s parents’ murder, he had always considered the man evil. He was a ripper. He had demanded that the people of Chicago submit to his will and the new world order of Vlad the Scourge. He had sent riot police, many of them rippers themselves. Later, an army came to “pacify Chicago and restore good government.” That army had retreated in panic in the face of the first alliance of Chicago Loyalists.

A pigeon fluttered up against the screen over the steeple vent, trying to find a way into the tower, but Bishop Alvarez made sure that his church was well-maintained, even though they had only rudimentary plumbing and rare electricity from the generator. The screen frustrated the bird and off it flew. Despite the bishop’s best efforts, the clock below Tevy no longer worked, but the bell below it still marked the hours of the day.

Tevy often came here when he was troubled, and he’d learned to wedge himself against the steep peak while sitting on a loose board over two rafters. He actually spent most of the day asleep. He woke each hour for the bell, of course, but his gun-deafened ears didn’t find it nearly as loud as when he first found his way up here as a child. So each hour, Tevy spent a few minutes before drifting back to sleep, thinking about the murder of millions of people and trying to decide whether it was justified. They’d murdered millions of Loyalists humans after all, because intentionally burning crops and withholding food was slow murder—the worst kind.

He had always assumed that the killing would end. When Bertrand Allan killed Vlad the Scourge, there were wild celebrations in Old Town Chicago. Surely, people thought, with the head cut off the snake, things would get back to normal, even if it took a while to drag out the last of the rippers into the sun’s cleansing light.

But it was too late, the parasites having spread too far. If the famines hadn’t come, maybe the humans would have been able to kill all the rippers, maybe they could have purged Vlad’s disease and stopped the forced conversions. But Vlad laid the groundwork to ensure that his new world order would survive his death. There were simply too many rippers and too few humans left to fight them. The president made broadcast after broadcast telling the resistance to lay down their arms, to surrender to the inevitable, and for all Tevy knew, he still did, not that there were many in the Midwest with the electricity available to turn on a TV and watch.