The Night Eternal

  Eph said, “We don’t want anything from you, except a map of these islands and a means to get out there.”

  “You’re going to detonate this little fucker.”

  Eph said, “We are indeed. You’ll want to relocate away from here, whether the island is more than a half mile offshore or not.”

  “We don’t live here,” said William.

  At first, Ann shot him a look that said he had told too much. But then she softened, allowing that she could be open with Eph and Fet since they had been open with her.

  “We live out in the islands,” she said. “Where the damn stingers can’t go. There are old forts from the Revolutionary War out there. We’re in them.”

  “How many?”

  “All told there’s forty-two of us. Was fifty-six; we’ve lost that many. We’re in three living groups, ’cause even after the world’s ended some assholes still can’t get along. We’re mostly neighbors who didn’t know one another before this damn thing. We keep coming back to the mainland to scavenge for arms, tools, and food, kind of like Robinson Crusoe if you consider the mainland the shipwreck.”

  Eph said, “You have boats.”

  “We do have fucking boats. Three motorboats and a whole bunch of li’l skiffs.”

  “Good,” said Eph. “Very good. I hope you can see fit to loan us one. I’m sorry we’re bringing this trouble your way.” He checked with the Born, who was standing very still. “Anything yet?”

  Nothing imminent.

  But Eph could tell by the way he answered that they were running out of time. He said to Ann, “You know these islands?”

  She nodded. “William knows them best. Like the back of his hand.”

  Eph said to William, “Can we go inside the restaurant and you sketch me out directions? I know what I’m looking for. It’s an island with very little growth on it, rocky, shaped like a trefoil, which is like a series of three overlapping rings. Like a biohazard symbol, if you can picture that.”

  Ann and William looked at each other in a way that showed they both knew exactly which island Eph was referring to. Eph felt a spike of adrenaline.

  A radio crackle surprised them, making jumpy William step back. The walkie-talkie in the front seat of the Jeep. “Friends of ours,” said Fet, moving to the door, reaching in for the radio. “Nora?”

  “Oh, thank God,” she said, her voice fuzzy over the airwaves. “We’re in Fishers Landing finally. Where are you?”

  “Follow the signs for the public beach. You’ll see a sign for Camp Riverside. Follow the dirt road to the water. Hurry up, but come quietly. We’ve met some others who can help us get out onto the water.”

  “Some others?” she said.

  “Just trust me and get out here, now.”

  “Okay, I see a sign for the beach,” she said. “We’ll be right there.”

  Fet set down the radio. “They’re close.”

  “Good,” said Eph, turning again to Mr. Quinlan. The Born was watching the sky, as though for a sign. This worried Eph. “Anything we need to know?”

  All quiet.

  “How many hours do we have until the meridiem?”

  Too many, I am afraid.

  “Something is troubling you,” said Eph. “What is it?”

  I do not enjoy traveling over water.

  “I realize that. And?”

  We should have seen the Master by now. I don’t like the fact that we have not …

  Ann and William wanted to talk, but Eph just wanted them to sketch out the route to the island. So he left them drawing on the back of a paper place mat and returned to Fet, standing before the bomb set upon the candy shop ice cream counter adjacent to the restaurant. Through the glass doors, Eph saw Mr. Quinlan waiting for vampires in front of the beach.

  Eph said, “How long will we have?”

  Fet said, “I don’t know. I hope long enough.” He showed him the switch with the safety on. “Turn this way for the delay.” It was set to a clock icon raised on the small panel. “Don’t turn it this way.” Toward the X. “Then run like hell.”

  Eph felt another cramp crawling up his arm. He clenched his fist and hid the pain best as he could.

  “I don’t like the idea of leaving it there. A lot can go wrong in a few minutes.”

  “We don’t have an alternative. Not if we want to survive.”

  They both looked up at the approaching headlights. Fet ran out to Nora’s car, and Eph remained behind, returning to monitor William’s work. Ann was making suggestions and William was annoyed. “It is four islands out and one over.”

  Ann said, “What about Little Thumb?”

  “You can’t give these islands pet names and expect everyone else to memorize them.”

  Ann looked at Eph and explained, “The third island looks like it has a little thumb.”

  Eph looked at the sketch. The route appeared clear enough; that was all that mattered.

  Eph said, “Can you take the others down the river to your island ahead of us? We won’t stay, we won’t be using up your resources. Just a place to hide and wait until this is all over.”

  Ann said, “Sure. Especially if you think you can do what you say you can do.”

  Eph nodded. “Life on Earth is going to change again.”

  “Back to normal.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” said Eph. “We’ll have a long way to go to get back to anything resembling normal. But we won’t have these bloodsuckers running us anymore.”

  Ann looked like a woman who had learned not to get her hopes up too high. “I am sorry I called you an asshole, buddy,” she said. “What you are is really a tough motherfucker.”

  Eph couldn’t help but smile. These days he would take any compliment, no matter how backhanded it was.

  “Can you tell us about the city?” said Ann. “We heard that all of midtown burned down.”

  “No, it’s—”

  The glass doors opened in the candy shop and Eph turned. Gus entered, holding a machine gun in one hand. Then he saw, through the glass, Nora approaching the door. Instead of Fet, a tall boy of about thirteen walked at her side. They entered and Eph could neither move nor speak … but his dry eyes instantly stung with tears and his throat closed with emotion.

  Zack looked around apprehensively, his eyes going past Eph to the old ice cream signs on the wall … then slowly coming back to his father’s face.

  Eph walked to him. The boy’s mouth opened but he did not speak. Eph got down on one knee before him, this boy who used to be at about Eph’s eye level when he did that. Now Eph looked up a few inches at him. The mess of hair falling down over his face partially hid his eyes.

  Zack said quietly to his father, “What are you doing here?”

  He was so much taller now. His hair was long and ragged, swept back from his ears, exactly the way a boy that age would choose to grow his hair without parental intervention. He looked reasonably clean. He appeared well fed.

  Eph grabbed him and hugged him hard. In doing so, he was making the boy real. Zack felt strange in his arms, smelled different, was different—older. Weak. It occurred to Eph how gaunt he must have looked to Zack in return.

  The boy did not hug him back, standing stiffly, enduring the embrace.

  He pushed him backward to look at him again. He wanted to know everything, how Zack had gotten here—but realized nothing else mattered right now.

  He was here. He was still human. He was free.

  “Oh, Zack,” said Eph, remembering the day he had lost him nearly two years before. He had tears in his eyes. “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”

  But Zack was looking at him strangely. “For what?”

  He started to say, “For allowing your mother to take you away—” But he stopped. “Zachary,” said Eph, overwhelmed by joy. “Look at you. So tall! You’re a man …”

  The boy’s mouth remained open, but he was too stunned to speak. He stared at his father—the man who had haunted his dreams like an all-powerful ghost. The
father who had abandoned him, deserted him, the one he remembered as being tall, so powerful, so wise, was a feeble, dry, insignificant thing. Unkempt, trembling, and weak.

  Zack felt a surge of disgust.

  Are you loyal?

  “I never stopped looking,” said Eph. “I never gave up. I know they told you I was dead—I’ve been fighting this whole time. For two years, I’ve been trying to get you back …”

  Zack looked around the room. Mr. Quinlan had entered the shop. Zack looked longest at the Born.

  “Mother is coming for me,” said Zack. “She’s going to be angry.”

  Eph nodded firmly. “I know she will. But … it’s almost over.”

  “I know that,” said Zack.

  Are you thankful for all I have provided, for all that I have shown you?

  “Come here … ,” said Eph, squeezing Zack’s shoulders and walking him to the bomb. Fet moved to intercept them, but Eph barely noticed. “This is a nuclear device. We’re going to use it to blow up an island. To wipe out the Master and all of its kind.”

  Zack stared at the device. “Why?” he asked in spite of himself.

  The end of times is near.

  Fet looked at Nora, a chill running down his spine. But Eph didn’t seem to notice, rapt in the role of the prodigal father.

  “To make things the way they used to be,” said Eph. “Before the strigoi. Before the darkness.”

  Zack looked strangely at Eph. The boy was blinking noticeably, purposefully, like a nervous, self-consoling tic. “I want to go home.”

  Eph nodded quickly. “And I want to take you there. All your stuff is in your bedroom just like you left it. Everything. We’ll go as soon as all this is over.”

  Zack shook his head, no longer looking at Eph. He was looking at Mr. Quinlan. “Home is the castle. In Central Park.”

  Eph’s hopeful expression faltered. “No, you’re never going back there again. I know it’s going to take a little time, but you’re going to be fine.”

  The boy is turned.

  Eph’s head whipped around to Mr. Quinlan. The Born stood looking at Zack.

  Eph stared at his son. He had all his hair; his complexion was good. His eyes weren’t black moons on a sea of red. His throat was not distended. “No. You’re wrong. He’s human.”

  Physically, yes. But look into his eyes. He brought someone here with him.

  Eph gripped the boy by the chin. He pushed the hair off his eyes. They were a little dim, maybe. A little withdrawn. Zack stared defiantly at first, then tried to look away, as any young teenager would.

  “No,” said Eph. “He’s fine. He will be fine. He resents me … it’s only normal. He’s angry at me, and … we just need to put him on a boat. Get him on the river.” Eph looked at Nora and Fet. “The sooner the better.”

  They are here.

  “What?” said Nora.

  Mr. Quinlan pulled his hood down tighter over his head.

  Take to the river. I will hold off as many as I can.

  The Born went out through the door. Eph grabbed Zack, started him toward the door, then stopped. To Fet, he said, “We’ll move him and the bomb at the same time.”

  Fet didn’t like it but said nothing. “He is my son, Vasiliy,” said Eph, choking, begging. “My son … all I have. But I will carry my mission through. I will not fail us.”

  For the first time in ages, Fet saw in Eph the old resolve—the leadership that he used to begrudgingly admire. This was the man Nora had once loved, and Fet had once followed.

  “You stay here then,” said Fet, grabbing his pack and moving out after Gus and Nora.

  Ann and William rushed over to him with the map. Eph said, “Go to the boats. Wait for us.”

  “We won’t have enough room for everyone, if you’re going to the island.”

  “We’ll work it out,” said Eph. “Now go. Before they try to scuttle them.”

  Eph locked the door behind them, then turned back to Zack. He looked at his son’s face, seeking reassurance. “It’s okay, Z. We’re going to be okay. It’s going to be over soon.”

  Zack blinked rapidly as he watched his father fold the map and stuff it into his coat pocket.

  The strigoi came out of the darkness. Mr. Quinlan saw their heat impressions rushing through the trees and waited to intercept them. Dozens of vampires, with more following behind—perhaps hundreds. Gus came up firing down the dirt road at an unlit vehicle. Sparks popped off the hood and the windshield crackled, but the car kept coming. Gus stood in front of it until he was certain he had put a good kill pattern in the windshield, then jumped out of the way at what he thought was the last moment.

  But the car turned his way as he went diving into the woods. A thick trunk stopped the vehicle with a ringing crash, though not before the front grille struck Gus’s legs and sent him flying into the trees. His left arm cracked like a tree branch, and when he got back to his feet he saw it hanging crookedly at his side—broken at the elbow, and maybe the shoulder too.

  Gus swore through clenched teeth, the pain severe. Still, his combat instincts kicked in, and he made himself run to the car, expecting vamps to come spilling out like circus clowns.

  Gus reached in with his good hand—the one holding his Steyr—and pulled back the driver’s head from the steering wheel. It was Creem, his head now lying back in the seat as though he were napping, except that he had taken two of Gus’s rounds in the forehead, one in the chest.

  “Reverse Mozambique, motherfucker,” said Gus, and let the head go, its nose crunching softly against the steering wheel crossbar.

  Gus saw no other occupants—though the rear door was strangely open.

  The Master …

  Mr. Quinlan had moved on in the blink of an eye, hunting his prey. Gus leaned a moment against the vehicle, beginning to gauge the gravity of his arm injury. It was then that he noticed a rivulet of blood oozing from Creem’s neck …

  Not a bullet wound.

  Creem’s eyes snapped open. He burst from the car, hurling himself toward Gus. The impact of Creem’s massive body knocked the air from Gus’s lungs, like a bull striking a matador, sending him sailing with almost as much force as the car had. Gus held on to his gun, but Creem’s hand closed around his entire forearm with incredible strength, crushing his tendons, forcing his fingers open. Creem’s knee was against Gus’s damaged left arm, grinding the broken bone like a mortar.

  Gus screamed, both in rage and pain.

  Creem’s eyes were wide open, looking crazed and slightly misaligned. His bling smile began to smoke and steam, his vampiric gums burning away from contact with the silver implants. The flesh burned away from his knuckles for the same reason. But Creem held on, puppeteered by the will of the Master. As Creem’s jaw opened and unhinged with a loud crack, Gus understood that the Master meant to take Gus and through him learn how to trump their plan. The grinding of his left arm drove Gus to howling distraction, but he could see Creem’s stinger budding in his mouth—oddly fascinating and slow—the reddened flesh parting, unfolding, revealing new layers as it awakened to its purpose.

  Creem was being forced into overdrive transformation by the Master’s will. The stinger became engorged amid the clouds of silver vapor, getting ready to strike. Drool and residual blood spilled onto Gus’s chest as the demented being that once had been Creem reared its vampiric head.

  In a final effort, Gus managed to twist his gun hand enough to aim loosely at Creem’s head. He fired once, twice, three times and, at such close range, each round ripped away huge amounts of flesh and bone from Creem’s face and neck.

  Creem’s stinger darted wildly into the air, seeking contact with Gus. Gus kept firing, one round striking the stinger. Strigoi blood and worms flew everywhere, as Gus finally succeeded in shattering Creem’s vertebrae and severing his spinal cord.

  Creem tipped over, slumping hard to the ground, twitching and steaming.

  Gus rolled away from the energized blood worms. He felt an immediate sting in
his leg, and quickly pulled up his left pant leg. He saw a worm sinking into his flesh. Instinctively, he reached for a sharp piece of the damaged automobile grille and dug into his leg. He sliced it open enough so that he could see the wriggling worm, rooting deeper and deeper. Gus grabbed the thing and yanked it out of his wound. The worm’s barbs grabbed hold, and it was excruciating—but he did it, dragging out the thin worm and pounding it into the ground, killing it.

  Gus got to his feet, chest heaving, leg bleeding. He didn’t mind seeing his own blood, so long as it remained red. Mr. Quinlan returned and took in the entire scene, especially Creem’s steaming corpse.

  Gus grinned. “See, compa? You can’t leave me alone for one fucking minute.”

  The Born felt other interlopers advancing along the windy shoreline and pointed Fet in that direction. The first of the raiders advanced on the Born. They came hard, this first sacrificial wave, and Mr. Quinlan matched their viciousness. As he fought, he tracked three feelers to his right, clustered around a female vampire. One of the feelers broke off and engaged him, romping toward the Born on all fours. Mr. Quinlan knocked a two-legged vampire aside to deal with the nimble blind one. He swatted it away, the feeler tumbling backward before springing up again on all fours like an animal pushed off a potential meal. Two other vampires came at him, and Mr. Quinlan moved fast to avoid them, keeping an eye on the feeler.

  A body came flying, launching off one of the storefront tables, landing on Mr. Quinlan’s back and shoulders with a high-pitched squeal. It was Kelly Goodweather, her right hand lashing out, raking the Born’s face. He howled and punched backward, and she slashed at him again, but he blocked it, grasping her wrist.

  A burst from Gus’s machine gun sent her leaping off Mr. Quinlan’s shoulders. Mr. Quinlan anticipated another attack from the feeler, then saw it lying in the dirt, full of holes.

  Mr. Quinlan touched his face. His hand came away sticky and white. He turned to go after Kelly, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  Glass shattered somewhere in the restaurant. Eph readied his silver sword. He moved Zack to the corner of the candy counter, keeping him out of harm’s way and yet basically trapped and unable to run. The bomb remained on the wall end of the counter, over Gus’s pack and the Born’s black leather satchel.