Page 72 of The Undead

“Last time. Who sent you?” Adam leaned forward to stare at the man. The swirling red started somewhere around the center of his eyes and whirlpooled out. A shrill anguished whine exploded out of the man; he tried to get away, but Adam held him without an effort. “Tell me.”

“Carlo. Like I told him, Carlo,” the man gasped. Adam glanced up at me; I shrugged.

“Yeah, he told me, but you were doing so well …”

“How gratifying,” Adam said, and turned the man around to face him. His eyes were still snapping with sparks, as red as the inferno that my house was becoming. “And your name?”

I couldn’t hear the answer over the noisy roar of the fire, but Adam smiled.

“Pleased to meet you,” he murmured, and buried his fangs in the man’s exposed throat. He wasn’t neat and careful. The man convulsed, arms and legs stiff, but Adam didn’t let go. I took an involuntary step forward, close enough to hear the wet sounds as Adam fed.

Adam ripped his fangs free in a spray of blood and pushed the man to me. I caught him by reflex, but I was still staring at Adam. His face was alight with joy, his eyes brilliant and red, his lips and chin slick with blood that looked black in the firelight. There wasn’t a trace left of humanity to him.

This was what I had become.

The man in my arms moaned. My doctor’s instinct took over; I eased him to the ground and clamped my hand over the hideous wound in his throat. Warm blood spilled over my cool fingers. His eyes rolled back in his head as he lost consciousness.

“Go on, Michael,” Adam said from behind me. His voice was richer than before, deeper and seductive. The voice of a fallen angel. “This is your chance to know what it’s like. You won’t get too many, not like this.”

“No,” I said faintly. I applied pressure to the throat wound. I felt dizzy and hot. “I’m a doctor.”

“He tried to kill you. He could have killed your wife. His only regret is that he wasn’t able to do it right.”

“No!” I screamed, and put my right hand atop my left. The smell of blood was overwhelming as it drowned out the smoky stench of the fire and the acrid tang of gas. “I won’t! I can’t!”

“Leave him alone!” Maggie shouted. She’d picked up a shovel from the toolshed and now she took up a batting stance between us. “I swear to God I’ll take your head off, Adam.”

He smiled, but the look in his eyes was cold and vicious. I glanced down at my “patient” and felt the tide surge up in me, hungry and alien.

“Maggie,” I managed to say, “go call an ambulance. Please.”

“I’m not leaving you,” she shot back. I looked down at my hands, blood-covered, with more blood pumping slowly between my trembling fingers.

“Please. Please go.”

She backed away from Adam very carefully, as aware as I was of her danger. When she reached the fence, she carefully leaned the shovel up against it, turned, and ran.

She didn’t look back.

The blood was peppery with fear, dark with approaching death. I drank until there wasn’t any more to drink. When I sat back, Adam put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed.

“It’s all right, Mike,” he murmured. I stared at the body of the man I’d just helped to kill and watched a dark patch of urine spread through the fabric of his pants. There were sirens wailing in the distance. “We’ve got to go.”

Without the blood to draw me, my nerves were already screaming their dislike of the fire. I looked up at it, a twisting orange fury, my past life a dark shell in its center. I’d lost so much … so very much … that it didn’t even seem real. No more real than the blood slicking my hands and face. My father’s watches, my mother’s books—gone. My paintings were gone. Maggie’s piano was gone, all her music, all her recordings—

Maggie was gone, too.

In the shadows, I caught the scent of terror and rank sweat, Old Spice and gas. Nick hadn’t bolted very far. He was rooted to the spot, watching me. I hesitated—long enough that his heart rate shot way up again—and thought about Nick and his fucking games. I imagined dragging him into the firelight and dropping him gibbering at my feet.

It would have been fun. “Something wrong?” Adam asked. I looked up at him.

“No,” I answered. “Should there be?”

I let Adam lead me away from the disaster. Neighbors had gathered in front, so we went down the alley. We paused in a deserted backyard to use the garden hose; Adam washed my face and hands and soaked as much of the blood from our clothes as he could.

“Adam” I finally said, when I could put all my distress into words. He looked up, mild and human again, my old friend. “I’m adoctor.”

He knew what I meant. He gently shook his head.

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