Suffer the Children (25 page)

“I’m glad you could make it,” he wheezed. The room smelled like his sour breath.

“Are you all right? Would you like me to examine you?”

“That’s not necessary. I know exactly what’s wrong with me.”

“Tell him he needs to go to the hospital,” Gloria said.

Ben shook his head. “I’m not leaving this house until I’m back on my feet.”

Gloria tried to fight off another round of tears, a battle she quickly lost. She excused herself to put coffee on. David sat on the easy chair across from Ben and placed the orange shoe box on the coffee table. He heard Gloria crying in the kitchen.

“I brought my gun like you asked,” he said. “I see you have yours.”

“That’s right.”

“Mind telling why I need one? What’s going on?”

“You any good with that thing? Can you shoot?”

“I haven’t fired it in years, to be honest. Since that time we went to the range together. Remember that?” David leaned forward. “Tell me what happened. I was there when they evacuated The Children’s Hospital. I heard the police took you into custody.”

“You heard right. What else did you hear?”

“I was told it was for your protection.”

“Protection, my ass. I was arrested, David.” Ben tried to push himself up farther on the couch but gave up, panting for air. “I spent the day sitting alone in an interrogation room. No one seemed to know what to do with me or even why I was there. I wasn’t allowed my phone call.”

“I called Gloria when I got home.”

“I know, and I appreciate that. She hired a lawyer, who went down to the station. They said I’d been released.”

“That’s it? You came home?”

“They lied. I was put in a holding cell with a bunch of scumbags. This one big cop, Officer Stellar, had a child who’d been autopsied at the hospital. Oh, he really had it in for me. The asshole actually called me Dr. Mengele, can you believe it? I think he was expecting the others to hurt me. But you know me.”

“Yes.” David smiled. “You have a way with people.”

“They thought I was a general practitioner. Right there, I diagnosed an ulcer and a fungal infection, which bought me some protection. Twice a cop walked past and noticed me in the cell and asked what the hell I was doing there, but nobody let me go. I didn’t even get a meal. It was like I didn’t exist.” He reached for a glass of water on the coffee table and took a sip. “Last night, the good Officer Stellar and two of his friends woke me up and brought me back to the interrogation room. Stellar told me they’d let me go if I did something for them. If I gave a donation.”

“They asked for a bribe?”

“They took my blood.”

“God, you’re anemic! That’s what’s wrong with you.”

“You got it. I told them to let me call my lawyer or put me back in my cell. Next thing I know, I had a gun pressed against my head.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Honest to God.”

“I’m sure they were just trying to scare you.”

“It sure as hell worked! I doubt if someone ever put a gun to your head, but I assure you, I was scared out of my mind. A part of me knew they wouldn’t dare shoot me in the middle of a police station, but the rest of me was shitting my pants.”

“So they took your blood.”

“One of them had some phlebotomy training, but not much; he did a sloppy job on the procedure, and now I’ve got shooting pains up and down my arm, and burning, like it’s resting in a vat of hot needles.”

“I can’t believe it,” said David. The procedure had caused mono-neuropathy. The needle had pierced the vein at a bad angle, gone straight through, and damaged a nerve.

“They took three units. After the first, I told them to stop, you can’t give more than a unit at a time, and they should give me something to replace the lost volume and prevent hypoperfusion. They asked if it would kill me. I said taking more than three units would probably kill me. So they took three on the nose.” Tears streamed down his cheeks and disappeared into his beard. “Do you know how much weight you lose when you give a pint of blood? A pound. ‘A pound of flesh, no more, no less.’ David, they took twenty-five percent of my blood. A quarter of my life.”

He cried out in emotional pain and gasped.

David turned away to give his friend a little dignity. “You’re in hemorrhagic shock. Gloria’s right. You need to go to the hospital.”

“Not a chance. I’m staying right here.”

“Did they say what the blood was for?”

“For their children. Officer Stellar called it a payment.” He gripped his gun. “I’m calling it a loan.”

Something clicked in David’s mind.

Doug Cooper’s voice:
They’re dead again
.
Your medicine didn’t work for shit. The medicine from the CDC. The vaccine.

Nadine:
Love brought them back to life
.
A sacrifice.

“I, uh, think I need to call my wife.”

“I’m glad you came, David. I just wanted to warn you.”

“Warn me? About what?”

“The police seized our records. Evidence, they said. Your name is on some of the autopsy reports.”

David’s mouth went dry. “Oh shit.”

“Yep. Keep the gun close.”

And do what? Point it at a cop? Shoot him?

“I honestly think I’d rather give the blood,” David said.

“They might want more than a pound of flesh next time, my friend. People are out of their fucking minds. The suicide rate is still going off the charts, did you know that? Every single one a parent with slashed
arms and thighs. Bled out. Always the same. No pills, no cars left running in locked garages. Not a single suicide note. Just arteries slashed with a straight razor. People are not right in the head.” Ben dismissed him with a wave of his good arm. “Now go. Go call Nadine. Keep her safe. I’ll be all right.”

“I’ll check in with you again later.”

“Fine. I’ll be here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Ben called after him as he headed toward the door. “One more thing, David. Possibly the most important thing. I got an e-mail from the CDC today. Big news. Someone found Herod itself. Turns out our friend is a parasite. Makes itself right at home in the brain, heart, nervous system, and stomach. Thought you might want to know.”

“A parasite,” David echoed.
A brand-new life form.

Even now, there was something exciting about it. His mind raced with questions. Where did it come from? How had it infected everybody? Why did it only kill the children? How had it resurrected them?

Ben said, “So whatever we did to those kids, at least we got that.”

The cold air felt like a slap as he left the house. He was still reeling from everything Ben had told him. He stood in the driveway for a while, just breathing. Then he called Nadine.

No answer. He called again. She answered on the fourth ring.

“I’m with a patient,” she said.

“I want to know what you’re doing. Is there a connection between blood and the children’s recovery?”

After a long pause: “Yes.”

David felt his day, which had started with magic and a sense of renewal, continue its rapid decay. “Are you transfusing them?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Where the hell are you?”

“Stay home, darling. Rest.”

“No. I’m coming to you. I need to see for myself what you’re doing.”

“Please don’t. I’ll tell you everything later. I promise.”

“Tell me this. Doug Cooper said the medicine didn’t work. You seemed to think that was happening a lot. So those smiling kids on TV are going to return to their morbid state. Is that right?”

“Unless they get more blood.”

“Jesus,” said David. He wanted to throw up.

Another long pause. “All right. I’ll give you the address.”

Minutes later, David was driving toward Ramona Fox’s house.

He slammed his hand against the steering wheel.

What a fool I was. What an idiot.

He’d believed in the miracle. Everything was going to return to normal. The children. Him and Nadine. The power of love had healed the world’s gaping wound. As if by magic.

It was all an illusion, a trick. Herod’s trick. It was a clever parasite. It took the children hostage to get what it wanted. And because it was essential to reanimation, there was no destroying it. To kill Herod was to destroy the children themselves.

The sight of children in the playground was so mundane he nearly missed it. He slowed the car.

Real, living children. Playing.

“Oh God,” he said. They were beautiful.

He pulled over and studied them through a chain-link fence. Six boys and four girls playing under the watchful eyes of their parents.

There was nothing wrong with them. They looked normal. They laughed; it was children’s laughter. They swung across the monkey bars and whooshed down the slide.

Only the adults struck him as strange. They stood at the edge of the play area with anxious smiles. Pale and haggard, they looked more like junkies looking to score than parents. Every so often they glanced at their watches. They didn’t talk to each other. They avoided making eye contact, as if they shared an embarrassing secret nobody wanted to acknowledge.

Fear tingled along David’s spine. The children filled him with a superstitious awe. He kept expecting them to stop in unison and stare at him, like something out of a horror movie.

Ben’s gotten into your head. You’re getting paranoid.

Time to get back on the road. The children had returned to life; that was a fact. He needed to get to Ramona Fox’s house so he could understand the mechanism.

A rash of gooseflesh broke out along his arms.

The
parents
were all staring at him.

His cell rang.
They’re calling me!

No. Of course they weren’t.

Get a grip, doctor.
He answered the phone.

“David Harris,” he said.

“She’s
dead
.”

“Who is this?”

“Shannon’s dead.” Charlie Donegal, crying. “My little girl’s dead.”

4 days after Resurrection

Last summer, Mom took him to the community pool. He put on a pair of goggles and swam along the gloomy bottom past prancing feet.

I’m a shark, look out, everybody.

He spun and looked up at the sunlight shimmering through the water. He swam toward it and broke the surface.

Waking up from being dead was a lot like that.

Timeless suspension, followed by a sense of everything moving.
Everything.

Mom was crying. Dad too. But smiling. They were happy to see him. Nate didn’t remember being born, but it must have been like this. Happiness and tears.

And screaming. It hurt to be born.

Fire ants in my brain!

He coughed and coughed.

Air filled his lungs again, but this time, he didn’t scream or cough. He sat up in his bed.

He said, “I guess I fell asleep again.”

Mom hugged him against her chest. It made him feel awkward, and
he wriggled until she got the hint. He said, “I
died
again.” He looked at Dad. “I did. Right?”

Dad just nodded.

Nate thought about that for a few moments but came up with nothing.

“Can I play with my Christmas presents now?”

Mom and Dad looked at each other.

“He remembers,” said Dad. Mom nodded with a big smile.

“I told you he would. It’s the real him. Not a copy.”

Nate frowned. He hated when Mom and Dad talked about him as if he weren’t there. Their staring made him feel funny. Of course he remembered the presents. Why wouldn’t he?

He was the same old Nate. Was there a different Nate out there somewhere?

“Can I go play?” Still a question, but urgent now. They were wasting time here.

“Your father and I were thinking we would all do something together today.”

“Okay.” He gave them a shrewd look. “Like what?”

“Like maybe go to the park. Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

The park.
He liked the sound of that.
Outside.
“I feel great. Really. I’m not sick anymore.”

“We should feed him first,” said Dad.

“He just ate a big dinner, remember?”

“That was last night.”

“Not to him it isn’t.”

Nate’s stomach growled. “I guess I could eat a peanut butter sandwich or something.”

“It’ll have to be on Ritz crackers,” Mom told him. “There’s no bread. The store ran out. Is that okay?”

“I guess.” Mom
never
asked him if it was okay. She just fed him. Even stuff he hated, his mom made him eat because it was good for him. Mom and Dad acting weird, the jarring jump from opening Christmas presents in the living room to waking up in his bed, even
the store running out of something as constant as bread—nothing felt right.

And no school—was it Saturday already? He didn’t recall going to school all week.

Then he remembered his dad explaining to him that he and Megan had a disease. He was sick.

His dad’s voice:
Sick? Son, you could guess you were DEAD
.

So he’d died again.
Wow.
He knew deep in his bones death was bad, and he didn’t want to die, but death wasn’t very scary—it was, well, nothing. He had a vague memory of staring at the ceiling, but at the time he didn’t know he was staring, didn’t know it was a ceiling, and had no sense of time passing. The memory itself was only a flicker occurring just before he woke up.

Death was
weird
.

They left him alone long enough to get dressed. He went to the bathroom to pee and paused to study himself in the mirror. He didn’t look sick. He didn’t feel sick either. He felt just fine. Ready for anything.

He went downstairs. His Giants hat was in its usual spot on a hook next to the front door. He put it on. The hat made him feel normal again.

Mom put a plate of crackers on the kitchen table and sat with Dad, who was studying a yellow notepad. Dad smelled like cigarettes, a familiar smell, and alcohol, which wasn’t as much. Nate threw himself into his chair and stuffed a handful of crackers into his mouth. He chewed fast, washed them down with a gulp of milk, and reached for more.