The Product Line (Book 1): Product (16 page)

He fights back the thought of killing the man where he is squatting over the ground. Instead Antonios lunges up behind the man, wrapping his arm around his neck and pulling it tightly so that only a brief grunt escapes his mouth before it is cut off. A shout comes from the nearby campsite.

--Banek, please, I do not need to know the difficulty of your shitting!

Banek drops limp in Antonios’ arms, completely unconscious. Antonios is familiar with this way to choke a man, though he has never successfully implemented it himself. He has endured several fights with other village children who put him to ground numerous times with it.

For his size, Antonios finds Banek surprisingly light. Light enough that he can be carried with one arm. Antonios opts instead to throw the man over his shoulder and runs the way he came from and far from the earthen road the man and his companions have been traveling. After a few moments he approaches the top of the tree-line, where the campsite is but a distant point in the horizon, a mere firefly in the blackness of the night sky.

Antonios drops Banek to the ground. His hunger is nearly frenzied at this point, each thought mixed with the inexplicable desire to drink of this man, but before he feeds he commits himself to spending a few more moments evaluating his hunger, his buried desires and to reflect on the events with Eliska.

All these changes—his body, his hunger, his strength, the demon—it is clearly all connected. Perhaps the demon did pass something, some piece of itself onto Antonios. But alongside these changes he is still to a large extent himself. He still loves his mother and family, he still remembers his prayers and the Bible. He can recall with great clarity any moment from his brief life.

So if the demon is now inside me, then I too must also still be here. Perhaps it was something added, but nothing removed. Which would stand to reason why there is this new hunger, it is the sustenance the demon requires to survive.

Banek begins to stir, returning slowly to consciousness with painful coughs and gasps. He is confused by the young man seated across from him. A young man covered in dirt and whose face and chest is painted from his cheeks to his trousers in dried animal blood.

--What… echht, eccht… Who… Echht!

Banek coughs as he tries to move air past his throat. In Antonios’ haste and as a result of his augmented strength, he has done far more damage than he intended to do.

Antonios watches as Banek looks for a weapon, a stick, a rock, something he can hurl or swing at Antonios.

--Who are… echht… Who are you?

Antonios finishes his thoughts, weighing his next steps, all while the Virus tears at him to feed. All while it pushes him to consume this man.

--What have you done?

His final thought before responding to Banek:
If the demon must be fed for me to keep what remains of myself, then so be it.
Antonios’ mouth moves and from it comes Banek’s native tongue, a language unfamiliar to Antonios a few short hours ago, but now, like so many things, burned into his mind.

--I am sorry, sir, but I am simply doing what must be done.

On that note Antonios lunges toward Banek and slices through his throat and windpipe with his small dull pocket knife. A knife given to him by his father three years prior. A blade sharp enough to make intentions manifest, but dull enough to spare harm through error or faltering judgment. As the shock of the blade passing through flesh settles in, Banek falls backwards, his arms flailing up and down like an injured bird struggling to take flight. He chokes as the blood rushing from the wound in his neck also courses into his windpipe, drowning him with his own essence while the rest is eagerly sucked down by Antonios.

The hot thick blood spills into Antonios’ mouth and he once again feels the bliss, that warm and loving embrace wrapping every inch of his body in contented joy. He knows this is the demon’s reward, a way for him to accept that he is now a man of split purpose, human and also not. He is Man and Beast made together in one body, and this bliss, this deceptive joy is the demon’s way of hoping to encourage its cohabitant to abandon altogether his humanity and empty another person’s life into his belly.

Antonios loses himself in the pleasure.

Chapter 19

Ernie stands on the corner of a rooftop just outside the source of the bittersweet stink of Virus in the air. He was initially concerned that he would not be able to locate the building before the night gave way to morning, especially considering the run-in with Marie. He had found it tougher to track the scent while also focusing on how he might handle his daughter and her newfound awareness of his existence. She will begin to look for him again and start asking questions that could lead to more problems for him down the road.

Gideon demanded that Ernie sever all ties to his previous life and was willing to help further this deception with Marie by carrying out Ernie’s falsified death. However, that was under the pretense that he would never see her again.

His personal issue with Marie aside, the tracking of the Virus’ trail has also proven to be more difficult than initially expected. Several paths and tributaries of the Virus’ scent snaked off in different directions, leading him down a handful of different tracks, until he found a larger vein of vapor in the air where several of the trails coalesced. He figured that this must be where the people were coming from or going to. Perhaps some sort of social center, or commune, or maybe even a feeding ground? But now, standing on the nearby roof, looking at the building, he is certain that he has found it.

His eyes and nose work together in a sort of synesthesia allowing him to see the spider-like cloud of Virus hovering over the area. The haze sends small snaking legs of Virus molecules off into the alley and streets surrounding it. These are the remnants of other infected, shadowed scent trails moving into the city, or from the city to the building.

As he looks at the building in front of him, he cannot believe his eyes. He did not know where the trail would take him or what he would find at the end of it, but certainly he did not expect to see what he does see.

In front of him is the Transitions building, a multi-story outreach center for the homeless.

He strains to survey it and his irises become deeply lined with a dark reddish black. Wispy crimson fingers of blood reach out from his irises into the whites of his eyes. Whirling vapors of Virus snake out from windows and building cracks. There is a ridiculous amount of security, even at the highest levels of the building. Exterior cameras and motion sensors line the architectural molding between each floor. And the rooftop exit is barred from the outside. Besides violating fire code, it is a clear sign that the occupants are meant to be kept inside.

He scans from the lower levels to the higher levels and sees that there is a rather abrupt change. The third floor appears to have standard studio-style apartment housing. There are simple appointments inside the room, lamps, sofas, televisions. Most look like the interior of a two-star hotel off the Long Island Expressway. They are clearly inhabited.  The rhythmic movement of breathing bodies currently occupying the beds and the faint glow of healthy circulator systems.

The individuals that he can sense through the thick concrete walls and glass of the structure tell him that there are dozens of people asleep on the floor above. Numerous cots or beds on the floor. He can barely see any break in the blinds or curtains that would allow him to see into any of the rooms, save for one spot on the fourth floor third window from the right. There is a single blind that has caught on something, creating a gap no bigger than a dime. The light inside the room is dim, and Ernie would never have been able to see into the room from this distance, but considering all the other enhancements, he decides to push himself.

He focuses with all his ability and concentrates with all his might to push his vision further, to extend his will and sight into the room. The muscles around his eyes tense and the red wisps of blood vessels empty all their color into the whites of his eyes, turning them deep reddish black.

He is able to peer like a sniper ratcheting his optics to the next level of zoom. The room, or perhaps the whole floor, is filled with hospital beds and machines. He can only make out one row of beds, but the bodies on this floor are set up in very close proximity to another. He tries to take in more details and pauses on the familiar face of a woman Ernie has interacted with several times in his life on the streets. He had stolen her hat shortly before he was infected, and never had the opportunity to return it. The thought makes him sad, not simply because he stole from her and she was crazy, but because he recalled using it as makeshift toilet paper shortly thereafter. It was a cruel joke with no punchline.

Ernie swallows his shame and continues to assess, his eyes beginning to burn and ache with the continued effort, which, considering his ability to heal and tolerance for pain, is a bit disconcerting.

Her body is restrained. IVs, tubes and several other machines surround her. For all intents and purposes this could be the Farm. Ernie has never been to the actual Farm, just the intake building, the prep facility for the Farm. It is where new crops are taken to be evaluated for their potential and prepared for insertion into the Farm. If someone is too injured during the collection process or cannot be healed to the point where they are a viable long-term crop, they are drained and disposed of.

Ernie does not know where the Farm is, but he has always imagined it is much closer to the Organization’s main location. This seems like it’s a bit too far away, and would have way too much foot traffic for moving sedated people in and out. Gideon is smarter than that. This can’t be the Farm…

He relaxes his eyes and allows his vision to be less strained. The black pools of blood in the sclera of his eyes reabsorb into red puff of capillaries. Then he notices as the blinds to several windows on the top floors begin to part, behind them the cold eyes of other infected, their irises also rimmed in red, blood pouring into the sclera as they too look out into the city. Moment by moment more blinds begin to part and more faces peer out from the windows. The way the light interacts with the windows, creating staggered reflections, he can tell that the glass used to make the windows of the upper three levels is several panes thick, most likely some sort of ballistic glass and virtually impossible to break.

--They have infected living on the Farm? That seems reckless and risky.

The lights to the entire upper floors go out all at once, and Ernie hears the rustling of people inside. His new, even more tuned senses pick up on what appears to be the buzz of an alarm and the muffled screech of something deep inside the building. 

--What the…?

He starts to run. He doesn’t look back, he just moves, as swiftly as his legs will carry him. Nearing the edge of one of the rooftops he can see that the building across the street, a good hundred and fifty feet away, is also slightly lower in height.

He has never made a jump this far before, but he still instinctually propels himself across the gap. The force of his jump is so great that to anyone with vision keen enough to witness him in the night sky, he would look as if he was flying over the city street. But it is almost dawn and the traffic below would never be looking up into the sky at this time of night.

He lets his instincts and much stronger muscles carry him over the tops of the building toward his home, his shithole apartment a mere twenty blocks away. His mind starts to wander. It tries desperately to put pieces together.

How can there be another group of infected so close to his home, so close to where the rest of Gideon’s Organization is staged? Moreover, how can the other infected not know about this, about the others?

His mind starts to wander.
Shit, I couldn’t sense they existed until tonight. And what was that sound, and why did those others have the same eyes
?

His initial judgment is that the only thing that adds up, the only thing that makes any sense, is that the others must know. But on thinking it through further, maybe they don’t know. Maybe whatever happened to him when the Rage started to take him over allows him to become more aware of the others, of their scent… A more pungent venom that smells so much like his own.

The question is whether or not he should bring this information to Gideon. Ernie is new to the Organization. He is still low man on a very tall totem. Gideon has shared much with him, but he knows that he is still not a trusted member of the group, and that there is still a great deal being kept from him. If Gideon does know about the others, how will he react to Ernie asking him about it? Claude and Nathan legitimately don’t seem to be aware of anyone outside the Organization, perhaps other than a few straggling rogues.

After his fuckup tonight, maybe it is best to bide his time. To wait until he has more information before making any kind of judgment call. After all, Gideon has been kind enough to send money to Maria, to falsify Ernie’s death and create an entire backstory for the others about how Ernie was infected, and if Gideon is putting homeless into the Farm, why would he be sending Ernie and the others out to recruit a bunch of bangers? Moreover, why do they have infected in the building who look more like captives than residents?

It doesn’t make sense. It is the first time in a long time that his mind encounters a problem that he can’t intuit his way through. There just isn’t enough to go on.

He is certain about one thing though. Whatever it is that has people chained up in that building, whatever is responsible for the foul scent of the Virus hanging over the city… Their entire operation seems different from Gideon’s model.

***

The purple-orange glow of the morning starts to creep slowly over the line of the horizon. Ernie knows well that this heralds the arrival of the sun. In only a few more minutes it will be completely upon him.