The Parasite War Read online

  Opening his eyes, he remembered where he was. In a sewer, cramped in a ventilator shaft with an ex-Society Hill princess and a dying man.

  Victor was talking. He seemed lucid, though he looked terrible. His eyes were red and rheumic, and his skin was ashen. He was sweating, though it was chilly in the sewer tonight.

  "Jo," Victor was saying in a gasping voice, "I want you and Alex to have my stash."

  "You're going to be all right," Jo said. "Don't start writing your last will and testament just yet, all right?"

  "I'm telling you, babe. This is it."

  "Victor . . . "

  "Once it starts crawling up my spine, what you see won't be me anymore. My body's gonna belong to some monster from Jesus only knows where. I might attack you then. So you gotta make sure Alex kills me before that."

  Jo could no longer convincingly pretend that she didn't think it was going to happen. "Oh, Victor, I'm so sorry."

  "You got nothin' to be sorry for, Jo. You been a good friend."

  She was crying openly now, the tears like jewels in the lantern light. "I'm sorry. I guess I should be used to this by now."

  "You never get used to this shit," Victor said. "But listen, babe. Let me tell you where my stash is at. First thing is, reach inside my coat and pull out that big ol' forty four."

  Jo did so, withdrawing an enormous pistol.

  "You'll find bullets in my pockets," Victor said, wheezing. "Now, listen to what I tell you."

  Victor grimaced and sat part way up, suffering a spasm. He fell back on the pile of rags and groaned. "You got to get across the river to West Philly."

  "Where in West Philly?" Alex said, leaning forward. When Victor had told them that his place was too far for a sick man to go, he wasn't kidding.

  "Basement off Lancaster, house got leveled during the war. But there's a way to get into the basement. I put some planks over the steps and covered it with trash. Whole neighborhood's all wrecked, and nobody goes there much anymore. So there ain't many colloids around there, either."

  "What street is it?"

  "Ishan." Victor choked.

  "Ishan? I don't know that street. Are you sure that's the right . . . ?"

  Victor's mouth opened wide, spittle flecking his lips. He coughed spasmodically and gagged. He was unable to breathe, rasping and choking. A lump appeared on his throat.

  At first Alex couldn't tell if it was Victor's Adam's apple, but then he saw that it was too low on the throat. And it was swelling, fast enough for him to see it balloon and threaten to break the skin.

  "Good God!" Jo cried.

  The death rattle sounded in Victor's throat. Foam gushed out through his clenched teeth and his body shook alarmingly. "Do it!" he rasped. "Do it, Alex!"

  Alex took the safety off his weapon and pointed it at the dying man. But just as he was about to fire, Victor's gray hand shot out and grasped Jo's shoulder. He pulled her on top of him, as she screamed in horror. The colloid had taken over.

  "Jo, get away from him!" Alex shouted. But she couldn't. And he couldn't get a shot off without running the risk of hitting her. Alex bolted toward the struggling figures.

  Jo wasn't screaming anymore. She reached down to her boot and pulled out something that clicked and gleamed in the dim light. It was a switchblade. With one quick and graceful motion, she cut Victor's throat.

  The gray hand relaxed its grip on her shoulder and fell away. Victor gurgled, the foam turning pink, and then crimson flowed so dark that it looked black in the lamplight. Arterial blood sprayed as Victor's body shuddered and was still.

  Jo shrank back away from the corpse. "Will the colloid come out?" she asked. "Can it infect us now?"

  "Probably not. It's suffering from shock now, with its hooks so deep into his nervous system."

  Alex pushed the body with his foot, until it teetered on the edge of the shaft. He kicked it hard, and it went over the ledge, splashing below.

  "Don't you think we should have burned it?" Jo asked, her eyes wide with fear.

  "No, it will probably dissolve. They don't like water very much, unless it's inside a living organism."

  "Yeah, right. Alex, hold me."

  He put his arm around her, feeling her trembling body. His heart was pounding, too. He had almost lost her, so soon after finding her.

  In spite of the need to preserve kerosene, they left the lantern burning even while they were asleep that night.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  "How the hell do we find Ishan Street, or Ishan Place, or Ishan Court, or whatever it is?" Alex said. They were moving slowly through a tunnel, following the tracks. This route would take them under the Schuylkill River to West Philadelphia. They were on an upward incline now, which meant that they would soon see daylight.

  "I don't know, Alex. We'll just have to look."

  "But where? Lancaster's a long, long street. It goes on for miles."

  "True, but don't you think it's worth putting some time into? Think of what we might get out of this."

  "I don't know. When he traded bullets for the picture frame, Victor claimed he didn't have much left."

  "He always said things like that. It was just the way he did business." There was a trace of sadness in her voice, but she would be all right.

  A faint light filtered down through the tunnel mouth ahead. The rubble deepened as they came closer to the surface, until they had to pick their way, with difficulty, through trash that was sometimes hip deep.

  They finally climbed out into the sunlight. The remains of West Philadelphia stretched out before them. A few blocks to the south were the blackened stones that had been the University of Pennsylvania, built in the Age of Enlightenment and destroyed in a fruitless effort to purge the city of colloids, three years earlier. To the north was the ghetto, where the rats now held dominion over all.

  "It's been a long time since I've been to West Philly," Alex said.

  "No wonder." Jo shook her head. "And I thought Center City was in a bad way."

  "Even if I knew where Ishan was in the first place, it would still be hard to find. There aren't too many street signs left around here."

  Perhaps Jo could see the hopelessness of the situation, now that they had actually come this far. They were faced with dozens of square miles of rubble. "Lancaster goes all the way out to Paoli and beyond," he said.

  "True, but it stands to reason that Victor wouldn't keep his stash miles from where he did his business. I bet it's not all that far from where we're standing."

  She didn't give up easily. "Well, let's get started."

  They roamed through the abandoned streets and ruined row houses, few of which still stood in one piece. Looking for planks covered by trash was akin to finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. Debris was everywhere, though there was not nearly so much paper as in the old days, and the once ubiquitous fast-food containers were rarely seen anymore.

  While they were going through a house that still had three walls standing, Alex thought he heard bricks clink. The Ingram's safety went off before he even thought about it, and he made a hand motion for Jo to be quiet. Backing up, and wincing as his still fresh scar rubbed against the bare bricks, he walked softly to the rear of the house.

  Footsteps sounded just beyond the wall.

  Alex moved out quickly, pointing his weapon ahead of him as he came into the open. Half a step and he would be back inside, covered by the wall.

  "Don't move!" he shouted.

  The man walking toward him showed no concern. In fact, he didn't even seem to notice Alex. He was tall and graybearded, wearing a ragged cassock and carrying a long piece of white, plastic piping like a staff. He reminded Alex of a biblical prophet. Besides the pipe, he didn't seem to be carrying any weapons.

  "I thought I told you to hold still!" Alex roared.

  The bearded man walked right past him, tapping with the pipe as if he was blind—which he clearly was not—and entered the three-sided house. Astonished, Alex followed him in and watched as h
e approached Jo.

  "Daughter, I've come to you because you've been chosen," he said in a booming voice as he stopped in front of her. He raised the pipe above his head, but Alex saw that he had no intention of striking out with it. "The Good Lord has singled you out for salvation, and I am his prophet, come to anoint you."

  "Terrific," Jo said, arching one eyebrow elegantly as she glanced at Alex. "I always thought I was kind of special."

  "Me, too." Alex moved toward them, putting the safety on the Ingram. He looked up at the bearded man, who must have been nearly seven feet tall. "But your friend the prophet doesn't recognize my divinity, I guess."

  The bearded man turned on him. "You blaspheme. This woman is not divine, she has merely been singled out for a purpose by God."

  "Yeah, I guess there is a difference."

  "Indeed there is, sir." The old man looked straight at him, and Alex was almost startled by the blue clarity of his eyes. They were the eyes of someone thirty years younger than this man.

  "What's your name?" Jo asked him.

  He turned back to her, and opened his mouth. No words came for a few seconds, as if he were struggling to remember. At last he said, "Samuel."

  "My name is Jo, Samuel. And this is Alex."

  "This man is a warrior," said Samuel. "The Lord has protected him from harm in this wasteland. And now he has been sent to help you, Jo."

  "Help me do what?"

  Samuel bowed his head. "I don't know, for I have not been given that knowledge. The Lord will make His purpose clear in His own good time."

  "Yeah, I guess He will." It occurred to Alex that he might have run into this man on the streets of Center City before the war. There were so many street people, sad schizophrenics with no place to go. It was ironic that so many of them had survived, while most of those who had gotten along in the old days were gone. The meek had inherited the earth, after all—what was left of it.

  "When was the last time you had something to eat, Samuel?" Alex asked. "We've got a little food we can share."

  Jo looked at him with surprise.

  "The Lord's work is demanding," Alex said, pulling a can of pineapple chunks from his pack and pulling the tab. "Can't do it on an empty stomach."

  "Yours is a generous spirit, my son," Samuel said. "I know the Lord will take note of what you have done."

  "You'd do the same for me, wouldn't you?"

  But Samuel was too busy wolfing down the sweet fruit chunks to answer. He squatted by the brick wall and enjoyed himself.

  "How do you suppose he survived all this time?" said Jo. "He's so old and slow moving."

  "Perhaps the Lord is protecting him," Alex said.

  "Right."

  He laughed. "Well, what's your explanation?"

  Jo shrugged, and turned to Samuel. "I don't know, but maybe he can help us find Ishan."

  "Ishan?" Samuel looked up, wiping juice from his lips. "I know that sinful street."

  Jo offered a quick I-told-you-so glance to Alex. "Is it far from here, Samuel?"

  "No, not at all. The Lord directed my path to that street many times, before the evil befell the world. It was as if divine forces had wanted me to take note of it each time I passed it."

  Alex began to wonder if the old guy really did know where it was. A schizophrenic might say anything. On the other hand, he probably knew West Philly better than they did.

  "Could you lead us there?" Jo asked.

  "Yes, I shall lead you, since you have been so kind as to share your food with me." Samuel rose from the broken bricks and raised his plastic staff. "Come, follow me."

  Alex could hardly refrain from laughing. There was only a remote chance that Samuel knew where he was going, but even so, it would do little harm to humor Jo. After all, who knew what they might find while they went around in circles. West Philly probably wasn't picked clean yet.

  As they walked, always clinging to the shadows of gutted buildings, Alex tried to get his bearings. He thought they were somewhere near 34th Street. It seemed that Samuel actually might be leading them in the general direction of Lancaster Avenue, at the very least.

  At the summit of a hill, Samuel turned and barred their way with his staff. "Satan's minions wait below," he said. "We can go no farther."

  There were three people moving through the razed houses at the foot of the hill.

  "Wait here," Alex said, feeling the adrenalin flow. He slipped around the protesting Samuel and crouched in what had once been an alley, now little more than a rough trench cutting through the weather-packed debris.

  Taking a circuitous route, Alex silently made his way down toward the three shambling figures. He crawled through a bombed-out basement, oblivious to the sharp edges of the bricks gouging his skin through the holes in his clothing. At the bottom of a stairway, he waited. If he had guessed right, at least one of the three should be passing by in a few seconds.

  Alex's calculations proved to be correct. The thing walked right past him, and from his low vantage Alex got a good look. Good enough to see blue blotches on the gaunt man's face. Infected; in an early stage, but irrevocable. The poor bastard didn't even have Victor's miserable option of hacking off a limb. It would have taken an experienced surgeon to cut it out of his face.

  Before moving on, Alex waited until he could no longer hear the scuffing of the infected man's shoes. He went back the way he had come, careful not to be seen by the other two infected people. Emerging from the basement, he heard Jo scream.

  Dropping any attempt at caution, Alex sprinted back up the hill, simultaneously releasing the Ingram's safety. As soon as he came into the open, he saw what had happened.

  They were all around Jo and Samuel, the latter brandishing his white plastic pipe to ward them off. They were all in the early stages, still recognizably human in shape. They had suckered Alex into leaving his group.

  Now they were attacking.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Alex didn't dare to shoot, because the infected—ten or twelve strong—were too close to Jo and Samuel. He would have to move fast.

  Now that he was out in the open, however, he realized that he had underestimated their attackers once again. More bodies lurched out of doorways and blasted cellars, coming straight for him.

  He waited until three of them were close together, and fired a sweeping burst to cut them down. He had effectively broken a hole in their ranks, and he charged through with his head down, like a bull. On the hilltop, Jo's attackers hesitated at the sound of the gunshots. One of them turned awkwardly toward him, a naked woman with the telltale blue patches all over her pale skin.

  Alex shot her down without hesitation.

  Jo had both pistols out, and she pointed the .32 directly at the face of the nearest zombie. She fired once and pivoted to face the next assailant. The .44 blew the right arm off this one.

  Clutching the pipe like a baseball bat, Samuel flailed at them. He connected with a wet, meaty smack, sending one of the infected men into a splayed somersault.

  As Alex gained the top of the hill, bony hands reached for him. He used the stock of the Ingram to fend them off, and kicked the fallen attackers out of the way. He shot two more down to clear a path.

  "Get moving!" he shouted, turning to cover those who were still standing. As Jo and Samuel ran, Alex shot the nearest of the infected, satisfied to see the one behind it stumble over the body. He turned around and ran after Jo and Samuel. There was no danger of this bunch catching up with them now. Even in the early stages of infection, motor response was severely debilitated.

  He caught up with Samuel and Jo a few blocks away. "It's all right," he said, breathing heavily from exertion. "They're way back there."

  "But if there are any others nearby they will know we're here," Samuel said. Except for a residue of sweat on his lined face, he showed no signs of the struggle.

  "Yeah, we'll keep our eyes peeled." Alex gestured to the east. "Meantime, do you think there's any other way to get to Ishan?"

&nbs
p; Samuel's brow furrowed as if an invisible engraver were at work on his forehead. "That is Ishan Street."

  "That's what I was afraid of."

  "Don't you see what this means, Alex?" Jo said, her face flushed. "The infected must be looking for Victor's stash, too."

  "Not necessarily. They could just have wandered into this neighborhood."

  "Freshly infected, and with a plan of attack against intruders? Come on."

  "You may be right, Jo. But that means there's no chance to search for the stash. If I'm right, we can come back later and start all over again. If you're right, we might as well forget it."