The Parasite War Read online

  Jo looked back toward Ishan Street. "We have to try."

  "Then let's lie low for a while. We'll check it out in a few days. If they're still here, we'll know they're looking for Victor's stash. And if they are looking for it, how did they learn about it in the first place?"

  "I don't know, but I'd really like to find out what he hid down there."

  "Wouldn't we both?" They were walking toward the river. There was no sense in staying in West Philadelphia under the circumstances.

  "What about Samuel?" Jo asked, as they reached the tunnel mouth.

  Alex turned and glanced at the older man, who walked behind them solemnly. "Well, he got along all right without us before. I guess he can do it again."

  "But he helped us find what we were looking for, Alex," Jo said. "We can't just leave him to fend for himself. We might not have been able to fight our way out if he hadn't been with us."

  Alex had his doubts about that. It seemed to him that the Ingram had made the difference. But he had seen the old man swinging his pipe like Barry Bonds; Samuel's support hadn't hurt them. Still, there were certain considerations to be made. They were living from moment to moment, with barely enough food for themselves, much less another person.

  "Do you really think it's a good idea?" he said. "I know he said you were the Chosen One, but we've still gotta eat."

  Jo glared at him, and Alex decided that it was no good to object. Reason was clearly not what would determine this decision. He shrugged, overruled. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea. There would be strength in numbers, and Samuel probably wouldn't eat very much.

  Alex turned and said, "So, Samuel, do you want to come with us?"

  Samuel shook his gray head. "I cannot join you. My mission is to return to the wilderness, where I shall remain until I receive further signs from God."

  Somehow, this announcement did not tempt Alex to laugh. Leaving Samuel alone seemed tantamount to a death sentence, with the infected roaming these streets. But Alex remembered what the schizophrenics had been like at the hospital. There was no arguing with them.

  "Thank you for what you did," Alex said.

  Sternly, Samuel nodded in acknowledgment of their gratitude. He turned and, using the pipe as a walking stick, made his way back through the endless maze of wrecked houses, whence he had come.

  Alex and Jo shifted some of the trash around and entered the tunnel. There was enough light so that they didn't have to use the lantern for the first hundred feet or so, as they passed under the river.

  "Do you think we'll ever see him again?" said Jo.

  "I don't know."

  A couple of hours later they had made their way through the steam vents and sewers, and were approaching their nest.

  "There's no place like home," Jo said.

  Alex laughed. He helped Jo up into the shaft and they divested themselves of their equipment and clothing. Lust came over them suddenly, perhaps as a result of the danger they had faced this afternoon. The notion that there's nothing like the proximity of death to make one appreciate life flitted briefly through Alex's mind. But soon he was preoccupied with less philosophical matters.

  As Alex kissed her deeply, Jo slowly descended on him. Moving languorously at first, they locked together in a hot love embrace, rocking back and forth with increasing speed. He kneaded her soft skin as she ran her fingers through his hair with one hand and caressed his back with the other. Some time later, they climaxed together.

  Deeply satisfied, Alex examined Jo's face with his fingertips. "You're beautiful," he said.

  She laughed. "And you're crazy."

  "That's true, but you're still beautiful."

  They disentangled and slept for awhile. Something awakened Alex during the night. A splashing in the water below. Perhaps it was only a rat. Or maybe some lost soul trying to get away from the colloids.

  Alex reached for the Ingram, just in case. Even in this total darkness, he knew exactly where to find it.

  Nudging Jo, he whispered to her to get dressed. He heard more soft splashing, as if the intruder were trying to be stealthy. He could tell from the way Jo breathed that she heard it too. She fumbled with her clothes in the darkness, and then Alex heard her checking the chamber of the .32.

  They waited. The next splash was much nearer than the previous one. Alex had no doubts now; whoever it was, was coming straight towards them. He got his hunting knife out of the pack.

  He clicked off the safety, and Jo did the same. He could hear her breathing, but nothing else. His heart grew large in his chest. An eternity seemed to pass, an eternity in which nothing happened. He could almost believe that the intruder had passed them by. Almost . . . but not quite.

  Something was on the ledge. An animal? A hand? Alex knew how to find out. He swept the hunting knife before him low over the ledge, blade first, in a broad arc. He heard a scream, followed by loud splashing.

  And then there was silence again.

  Whoever was down there knew where they were. Alex and Jo didn't know how many they were up against, and they weren't about to light the lantern to find out. If those outside were human marauders with guns, they were finished. If not, they were in pretty good shape. The shaft was not easily accessible, and only one person at a time could climb up on the ledge to get in. If these were infected people, quick movements were out of the question.

  There was the sound of heavy breathing as somebody tried to climb up. Alex estimated about where the attacker's head would be and aimed a well-placed kick. His boot connected with a hard, meaty smack: there was a groan, followed by a loud splash.

  Now the water below them was alive with movement. More than one was coming up this time. A deafening burst from the Ingram illuminated three blotchy faces for an instant. Half the head of the nearest was blown away as the shaft was plunged into darkness again.

  "How many did you see down below?" he said.

  "I don't know, but there are a lot of them," Jo replied.

  "Maybe we better—" Fingers clutched at his ankle. He tried to strike at it with the gun butt, but succeeded only in painfully hitting himself on the foot. The hand gained a firm grip on his ankle, pulling him toward the brink. Alex didn't dare to shoot, for fear that he would blow his own leg off in the dark.

  "Jo!" he shouted. "It's got me!"

  His ankle was pulled hard, and he landed sharply on his ass. He tried to shake off his assailant, but he couldn't tell which way to kick. A match flared in the darkness, blinding him. A shot went off, and the hand relaxed its grip. The body it belonged to splashed into the water below.

  "Shit!" Jo exclaimed as the match burned her fingers. She struck another, using it to light the lantern. She shot another attacker through the head, clearing the ledge, and placed the lantern there. Taking Alex by the elbow, she pulled him back into the recesses of the shaft. Since it sloped upward, they could see the infected milling in the waist deep water below, while they were hidden in the shadows. After that it was like shooting the famous fish in a barrel.

  When the infected were all dead, Alex said, "We better gather up all we can and beat feet the hell out of here."

  "Why? There aren't any more of them."

  "Not right now, but there are more coming, you can count on it."

  "But they don't do things that way, do they?" Jo sounded frightened.

  "They didn't used to, but then, they never used to come down into the sewer, either. Maybe it's because food is getting scarce. These goddamn parasites can't live on dead bodies."

  Jo was busily stuffing things into her backpack. She rolled the rest up in a blanket. Peering over the ledge, at the bodies floating in the water, she said, "Do we dare to go down there now? Won't they infect us?"

  "We're safer in the water. The virus, or whatever it is, is more likely to infect us if we stay up here. In the water, the colloid form will dissolve as soon as it gets out of the body."

  Alex hopped over the side. A moment later, Jo splashed down after him. With his gun barrel, he p
ushed the bodies out of the way and started moving out.

  As soon as they were far enough away to talk, Jo said, "I just thought of something."

  "What?"

  "They followed us back, didn't they? They followed us, and listened to us making love, and waited until they thought we were asleep. And they did it all without making a sound."

  "Yeah, that's how it looks."

  "But how could they do that?"

  "They must communicate in some way we don't know . . . maybe telepathy."

  "But how could some virus, even if it was created for germ warfare, make people telepathic?"

  "I don't know, but it would explain why we hear colloids screaming when we burn them. I always wondered how they could do it without any vocal apparatus."

  "You mean that we hear it in our minds?"

  "Got a better explanation?"

  "No . . . but what kind of a virus could do that?"

  "We don't know if it is a virus. It's something like one, that's all we know."

  "Where could it have come from?"

  "What difference does it make? It's here now, even if it came from halfway across the galaxy."

  CHAPTER SIX

  Where would they go? That was what they discussed now, as they moved through the night. If the colloids no longer feared dissolving in water—and why should they, while there were hosts to carry them?—the sewer wasn't safe anymore. Where else in the city could humans hide?

  "The only place where we've got a chance is the park," Alex said as they came up the steps of the Broad Street Subway. There was a waning moon, just past full, that lit their way.

  "You mean Fairmount Park?"

  "Yeah, it stretches for miles, and it's completely overgrown. We might be able to survive there for a while."

  "You don't think the colloids will look for us there?"

  "Even if they do, we'll have a lot of room to elude them."

  Jo shrugged. "What have we got to lose?"

  They had a hike of a mile or more, before they reached Fairmount Park. They stuck to alleys and narrow, back streets as much as they could, which more than doubled the time it took to reach their destination. Twice they saw the glistening hump of a colloid, one sliding down a brick wall, the other pulsating in a doorway. They managed to get by both of them without being sensed. They didn't stop until they were knee deep in weeds, the statues of the park rising ominously in the shadows. This had been a dangerous place even when the city was still alive, a place known for rapists and muggers, a far cry from the intent of its designers in the nineteeth century, who had envisioned a sylvan paradise in the heart of the city. The demise of mankind had left the park a little cleaner, at least; there was no fresh graffiti on the monuments. In the end, Alex thought grimly, the planet might be better off under the rule of the colloids. He decided not to think about it. This was no time to fall into a depressed state.

  "I used to jog here," Jo said, her voice sad and distant. "Over there by Boathouse Row."

  Alex turned in the direction she faced, and saw the shards of the old boathouses rising up from the river like decaying teeth. It somehow was not nostalgic to remember the rowers in their sculls, who had been a familiar sight in the old days. It hurt to think about the world the way it used to be.

  "We've got to go further in, away from the river," he said.

  Jo nodded, and they moved on. There were many stone structures in the park, even outbuildings that they might be able to live in.

  "There must be other people hiding out around here," said Alex.

  "Yeah."

  "We don't want to get blown away by humans who mistake us for infected stiffs. Let's be just as careful here as we would outside the park."

  "It seems as though you've planned this out," Jo said.

  "Yeah, I've thought about coming here more than once. You know how the sewer can get to you."

  The foliage was so thick now that they could hardly move. It was amazing how much nature had reclaimed in only three years. Alex stopped and removed a machete from his pack. He hated to dull the blade, but this seemed like the time to use it. He started hacking away at the branches until he and Jo could move forward a little faster.

  "You know, this just might work out," he said. "It's like the goddamn Amazon Jungle back here."

  Jo smiled, enjoying the first pleasant moment they had experienced today. The possibility of survival seemed a little more feasible now, at least. That was something.

  "You know, it's funny," she said. "I've been living down in the sewer for a long time. It never occurred to me that I might come up and live on the surface again, because there were other people underground, and there was bartering going on so you could at least get a little food and some weapons. What are we gonna live on now?"

  "There are brooks and ponds in this park. By now they should be fairly clean. After all, it's been three years since any waste has been pumped into the river. If we boil our water, it should get rid of any residue. As for food, well, as you pointed out before, there must be other people in this park. It won't be long before we'll run into some of them."

  "Let's hope they're not too territorial."

  "Yeah."

  They went a little further, until they came to a stone bridge. There was a large enough ledge underneath it for them to lie down on and get some rest, and roots and underbrush kept them pretty well hidden. Feeling that things had worked out better than they could have hoped a few hours ago, they covered themselves with torn blankets and stretched out, completely exhausted. The ground was hard, and it wasn't quite warm enough for comfort, but they were both asleep within seconds.

  Alex awakened, finding Jo's head nestled against his chest. He was touched by the innocent expression on her still dreaming face. Birdsong and the water running under the bridge were soothing, constant sounds. He could almost believe that the colloids had never existed. But this was not his wife lying with him. She was gone, and so was his son. And the entire world was as dangerous as Iraq, when he had been with a Marine infantry division in Fallujah.

  There was another sound, faintly and pleasantly audible over the rushing brook. It was something Alex hadn't heard in a very long time. Someone was playing music!

  He jostled Jo awake. "What?" she said sleepily.

  "Listen."

  A gradual awareness crept over her features, as she began to perceive what she was hearing.

  "It's a guitar," she said, smiling. "God, that's so beautiful!"

  They rose, and, without even rolling up their blankets, began to move toward the music. The simple guitar chords broke the morning stillness with a purity that instilled in them a childlike wonder. It was easy to find the music's source. They didn't speak while they stole through the weeds toward the hirsute musician, who sat on a log strumming complacently, as if the entire world were at peace.

  The guitarist didn't finish the song he was playing, but began to play another one. Hitting a note that didn't please him, he went back to the beginning of the song again. The same thing happened, and he started a third time.

  Alex decided to show himself while some of the magic still lingered. He didn't want to listen to a long rehearsal if he could help it.

  "Hello," he said, stepping out of the bushes.

  An Uzi was pointed at him so quickly that he wondered why he hadn't seen it before coming into the open. The Ingram still at his side, Alex felt naked. Fortunately, Jo was covering him from the bushes.

  "Put that thing down, or I'll blow your fucking head off," she commanded the guitarist.

  The musician looked surprised, holding the neck of the guitar in his left hand, the Uzi in his right. "Which do you want me to put down, the gun or the ax?" he asked in a calm voice.

  Alex laughed. "Just the gun, please."

  The musician stooped and carefully set the Uzi on the ground. He held the guitar to his breast as though it were his only child. "This guitar is all I got," he said without emotion.

  "Take it easy. We're not af
ter your guitar, or anything else that belongs to you," Alex replied. "Jo, come on out here."

  Jo emerged from the bushes, her pistol trained on the guitarist. Walking toward him, Alex lifted the Uzi off the ground and, holding one weapon in either hand, said, "You can put that away now, Jo."

  "Are you sure?" she asked.

  "I think so. He was only trying to protect himself."

  "I guess we can't hold that against him," Jo lowered the .32's barrel. "But we don't know if he's got any friends hanging around here."