They Thirst (80 page)

"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 God," 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 makeshift 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-shirt, 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 brimming 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 . . . God, 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 a 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 classes because there were a lot of desks piled out in the hallway. Now the building had been turned into a makeshift hospital. Jo could see the beds through the open doors, six or more to a room. Nurses and doctors hurried about, pushing 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 the 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 hoarse 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 God, so are you . . .."

"Alive?" he whispered. "No, it's a dream . . ."

She shook her head, tears brimming 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, God," 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 saltwater. 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 he 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 saltwater. 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 think 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."

"God save the doctor who tries to throw you out," Palatazin said. And looking up at her shining 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.

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."