The Product Line (Book 1): Product (17 page)

He makes a leap from his current rooftop to the fire escape catty-corner to him and spirals down before dropping to the ground.
At least the shadows will keep me moving.

His fear isn’t that the sun will come—he isn’t afraid of light hitting him and killing him, because he knows it won’t. His fear is that with everything else that has happened tonight, the light may impact him differently. If everything is being amped up, perhaps the light can push him into another Rage.

As he approaches the outside of his building he is able to leap all the way up to his apartment window. He ducks inside just when the first rays of orange light start to push through into the alley below, reflecting off the windows and glass of all the buildings nearby.

He lets out a huff and withdraws the vial from his pocket. He rolls it between his fingers and stares at its contents as the fluid hugs onto the glass and settles again like a full-bodied red wine. The product is always treated with a small amount of anticoagulant. It makes the blood less viscous than it would naturally be, but it also preserves the product a little longer. It is always best to keep it cold, but Ernie’s portions are so rationed out that he never has enough on hand to go more than a few days.

Perhaps the rationing is not as much about altruism and doing the least harm, and more about control.

--Oh well, fuck it.

Ernie gets his kit off the kitchen table, and decides to skip today’s immersion therapy and instead just go for the quick fix. He ties off, lines up the vein, and releases the contents into his arm. The painful bliss is immediate. Just as before, the reward comes with brutal punishment—a deep wrenching of his innards and a euphoric blanket of love. As he gives in to this joy he realizes that this night has not brought any answers. Only more questions.

Tonight, after he has made his stops, he will return to the area where he heard that rooftop beast. Perhaps that will be a new trail for him to follow. Perhaps that will be the key to understanding what exactly is going on with the ironically named Transitions building.

***

After his body rides out the alternating waves of spasms and joy, Ernie rouses himself from the floor, once again feeling fully restored and alive. He strips to his underwear and decides to take a full inventory of his body to see what has changed since the previous night. His irises are still thinly lined with a deep red ring of blood, and the tendrils of bloodshot capillaries only seem to reach into his sclera when he strains to look closer. The more he relies on his sight, the more he pushes it, the darker the blood lines become. He stresses to look at the most intricate detail of the capillaries like a microscope increasing its magnification level to its highest zoom. He finds himself squinting as he did the night before, but is able to discern the tiniest of blood vessels in his eye with the detail of a shipyard rope. He can see as the effort causes the blood to course through the vessels in excited beats until the walls of the vessel give way and the whites of his eyes turn a deep blackish red.

--Well, that’s new.

He relaxes his eyes, the pool of blood is quickly reabsorbed and his iris returns to being thinly lined with red.

He grabs a cigarette from the remaining pack on the kitchen table and tosses it into his mouth and moves to light it in one fluid and unbroken motion. Before the flame can touch the end, he pauses, realizing that even for him this was a bit more fluid than usual. Somehow, at every stage of moving his hands he was certain of where and how the cigarette would react.

He pulls the cigarette out of his mouth, tries it a new way. Pinching the cigarette between his thumb and middle finger, he flicks the cigarette high into the air, just missing the ceiling, and at the last second turns his head to catch the filtered end in his mouth.

--Hmm. That’s new too.

Ernie lights the cig and takes a long drag off of it. It still tastes like shit, even more so than usual. As he exhales the smoke he can see the trail it leaves—even after the visible grey of the smoke has dissipated there is a lingering swirl of air and particles. He tries the same flicking trick again and just as before catches the now lit cigarette between his lips. After his next drag he looks down at his hands. The pumice stones of the previous night have softened slightly, but they are still much harder and denser-feeling than he is used to.

He grabs a steak knife from the pile of mess in the kitchen and pokes at the skin of his palm. Even with more than the necessary amount of pressure on the blade it does not pierce the skin. He sits at the kitchen table and lays his hand palm up. He presses harder, much harder, and the blade slides into the meat of his hand just between his thumb and index finger. The familiar explosion of pain radiates from the wound, but Ernie is more than capable of handling it without as much as a blink. He leaves the blade inserted into his hand, and watches as the Virus works to wriggle the blade free from its host, like thousands of tiny worker ants teaming together to accomplish a mutual goal—saving the host. After a few seconds the blade is fully withdrawn and only a single drop of blood is squeezed out before it closes completely. The drop of blood is absolutely filled with the scent of the Virus, that poisoned-flower bouquet.

Then he hears it.

Footsteps.

There are the rapid pattering sounds of feet making their way swiftly up the stairs. Two sets of feet, motivated by an urgent purpose. He can tell that they are only one story away, but moving quickly, too quickly to be anyone but the infected. When the door to his apartment swings open, he is not the least bit surprised. The looks on Claude and Nathan’s faces, however, do indicate that they did not expect to see Ernie in his skivvies taking an early morning smoke break.

--Guys. Everything OK?

Claude grabs Ernie’s pants off the floor and tosses them at him.

--No, everything is not OK. Can you please to put some pants on?

Ernie sets the cigarette down in his ashtray. Its overflowing contents make it difficult for it to remain lit or even balanced on the tower of spent filters. Ernie slides on his pants and grabs his I ♥ NYC shirt off the ground. As he tugs on the shirt, Nathan grabs the burning cigarette and stamps it out.

--How can you smoke those fucking things? You‘re the only infected I know who does. It’s like eating dog shit.

--Nathan, that’s the breakfast of champions. ’Sides, what are they gonna do? Kill me?

Ernie sits back at the table and starts to pull on his shoes.

--It’s nice of you guys to visit, but I don’t expect you braved the sun this morning to discuss the dangerous habit of cigarette smoking, so what’s the deal? Why are your panties in a bunch? Claude… I imagine yours are bunchy because you prefer lace and frilly things.

--Funny. Have you watched the news this morning?

--Nope. Just got in a bit ago, and as you can see…

Ernie pans his arms around the room highlighting that there is no television in the house.

--I prefer reading.

--Well. It’s not good, and Gideon is not happy.

--What’s not good?

Ernie finishes tying his shoes, and tosses a pack of cigs and his lighter in his pocket.

--Something… where we were last night. It killed a whole bunch of people.

--You saying someone went into a Rage?

--Just come with us. Gideon is waiting.

Ernie obliges, but before he takes his first step out the door he wonders if it was that
Thing
he heard the other night. That
Thing
that Ernie hasn’t told anyone about, that thing that could have provided a great cover for Ernie’s fuckup. Either way, Ernie knows he is going to take the hit for this. He is going to get blamed one way or the other.

Ernie knows Gideon. He is calculating and calmly psychotic in his own way. On the outside he projects an air of competence, a flair for the poetic and this protective notion that he operates in the interest of the greater good. Deep down Ernie can tell that he is a deeply conflicted person, struggling with his own unknowable past and willing to do what is necessary to protect the future of the Organization, be that good or evil.

For a split second, just before getting into the back seat of the black SUV parked in the underground parking garage, Ernie has the idea that he should run. Now could be the only chance for him to get away and to sort things out on his own. The thought passes quickly and is replaced by the image of Marie, dead, or worse inserted as another crop in the Farm. From the very first day of Ernie’s existence in the Organization Gideon has made certain that Ernie will never bite back, that he will remain true to the Organization if for no other reason than to spare the life of his beloved daughter, the only thing in the world that still retains any value to Ernie.

--You guys mind if I smoke?

Nathan shoots an angry look at Ernie.

--No!

--No, you don’t mind?

The car pulls out of the garage. The dark tint of the windows shields the three from the damaging rays of the sun, but doesn’t completely protect them. Like using a t-shirt as an oven mitt, the longer the sun leans on them, the more its effects are to be felt. Ernie can feel the burn as the sun starts to work its way into the vehicle. Both Claude and Nathan begin ever so slowly to age, every minute in the car adding another year to their visage. The sun has a way of pulling out the Virus, of revealing the true age of its host. The effects are most damaging on the oldest, where their true age should be dust. Ernie doesn’t know how old Gideon actually is, but considering his mannerisms and aesthetic appeal Ernie puts his age somewhere around “old as fuck“, so it would be a bad idea for him to get a tan.

--Guys, I never asked before, but I am hoping you aren’t in your late hundreds, ’cause you may just turn to dust.

Claude smacks his hand on the steering wheel and holds down the horn.

--Fucking sun! Come on, people, let’s move!

Ernie catches a glimpse of himself in the rear-view mirror, his face looking just as haggard and aged as theirs. The three twenty-year-olds are now in their late forties.

--Maybe somewhere there is a picture of us getting younger?

Silence.

--Oscar Wilde?
The Picture of Dorian Gray?
C’mon, guys. It’s a book.

The car slides into the parking garage at the Organization’s building. As soon as the sun leaves the car the youth begins to pour back into them, like a cup held under the stream of a waterfall, filling them again with vitality. Ernie steps out of the car and lights up a smoke.

--OK, guys, let’s see the man.

Chapter 20

The entire floor and every flat surface in Marie’s apartment is covered in a twenty-year chronology of paperwork and photo albums. Marie has spent the remainder of what was supposed to be a romantic evening with Hector frantically combing through all of her documents and keepsakes in search of one photo. One photo she is certain exists somewhere between pieces of paper not looked at in years.

Hector has tried for hours to calm her down, to tell her what she is saying is impossible or crazy. She has showed him some of the more recent family albums, at least the remaining ones that Ernie hadn’t thrown out in a drunken sorrow-filled rage fifteen years before. The photos do show a younger Ernie with a striking resemblance to the man they have encountered, but the years were never kind to Ernie and the resemblance is not entirely convincing, even to Marie. This is why she has to keep looking.

--Hector, I know it was him. I know it was.

--Baby, I love you but that’s impossible, that was just some punk kid. Shit, he looked younger than me.

Marie shrugs it off.

--He had my father’s dog tags! How do you explain that?

--I think you maybe saw what you wanted to see, or shit, I don’t know, maybe your dad pawned them, and this kid bought them. I don’t know. I just know that… that kid wasn’t your dad, it couldn’t be, it doesn’t make any sense.

Hector puts his hands on Marie’s shoulders, holds her lovingly.

--Marie, please. Let’s just get some sleep, you’re tired, your emotions are all mixed up.

Marie touches Hector on the cheek. She leans in, gives him a long loving kiss on the lips, and then slides out from under his arms to return to her mess. Hector’s arms smack down at his sides, deflated.

She rifles through papers with a strange certainty to her purpose. She knows it’s here. Buried deep in her memories is the image of her father, nineteen years old, fit, handsome, standing shirtless in front of the jungles of Vietnam. His eyes full of life, of youth, of potential. The same face that she saw tonight was captured thirty years ago and forever sealed in the silver atoms and chemical mixture of Polaroid film.

--Look, I don’t… I don’t want to see you like this. The sun is up, it’s tomorrow and you haven’t slept a wink. This is crazy.

Hector starts to walk away when Marie screams and then bursts into tears. He turns to her. She is crying big chunky tears, holding a small Polaroid image. She wipes her eyes, and turns the image toward Hector. There, clear as day, is an image of the man they encountered on the street: a perfect image of Ernie as a young man. Hector responds.

--I don’t believe it.

He grabs the picture and looks closer, unable to accept the reality of the situation. Marie nods through her tears. She can’t make words yet.

--But… that’s impossible.

Marie sniffs back her tears, wipes her eyes again.

--Now I have to find him again… I have to.

She smiles at Hector, who smiles back.

--OK. I don’t understand any of this, but I love you.

Marie pulls herself up from the ground and quickly locates a folder amidst all the clutter. Inside is information related to her father’s life insurance policy, underwritten by some unknown company listed in upstate New York.

Chapter 21