The Product Line (Book 1): Product (20 page)

He forces himself onboard and leans on the handrail on the opposite door, doing well trying to go into his own mind to block out his senses. Mapping out what he believes could have transpired the previous night. What may have happened after Ernie dripped polluted blood on some unsuspecting banger. What he doesn’t understand is how and why the kid would have gone berserk like that so quickly. The urge to feed wouldn’t manifest itself for a while, and certainly there would have been no reason for the boy to go into a Rage. Assuming of course that what Ernie knows of the Rage is in fact accurate, which is seeming more and more likely to not be the case.

***

The trek into Morris Heights moves much quicker than Ernie expects and before he knows it he is in the heart of the Bronx. The Bronx is primarily a black neighborhood, and Ernie notes that the passengers have been getting darker with each stop and quickly Ernie is a rare commodity on the train. As the train makes its way out of open cuts in the underground line into the above ground passages Ernie is forced to tuck back into the train near the pass-through door. Even with the light being diffused by the overcast sky, it still makes his skin burn. Had he taken the time to prepare, thrown on a long-sleeved jacket and hoodie, it would be a bit easier to make it through these sections. As the train nears its final stop Ernie is tapped on the shoulder by a homeless man making his rounds through the train.

--Hey, gimme dolla.

The foul scent from the man is appalling to Ernie, and mixed with the scent of halitosis, booze and urine is some sort of blood infection. Sepsis? This man is sick and Ernie can smell it seeping out of his pores. The pain of the light is harsh but tolerable. He isn’t certain of the impact it is having on him, but his recent re-up on the product was definitely a good call. He grabs a twenty from his pocket and gives it to the beggar. Partly out of a sense of obligation to his kindred, but mostly so that the man will just go away.

Finally the train rolls into the Morris Park station. The doors open onto an exterior station platform, with entrances leading into the old concrete building. The entire space was originally designed to interact with the heavy steam trains of the early 1910s, and even with all the modifications done in the last few decades you can see the ghosts of the original concrete mission-style façade and architecture. The north end of the station is in a tunnel while the south end is an embankment with arched windows cut into the stationhouse.

Ernie exits the train, taking cover in the shade of the crossover. Already he has been getting glances from the locals, puzzled looks wondering why this white punk is in this area, or perhaps why this old white man is wearing young hipster kid clothes. He doesn’t know for sure that his appearance is holding up and at this point doesn’t really care.

He eyes his surroundings, trying to figure out the next step of his plan. He knows that it will be impossible to simply locate this banger without using his senses and trying to think how this kid will react to the discoveries of his new abilities and limitations. The first few weeks with the infection are all about wrapping your head around the changes. For Ernie they were all drastic: mental clarity, healthy body, no more getting drunk. Who knows what the change will feel like to someone who is already healthy?

Ernie focuses on his sense of smell, trying to isolate the scent of the Virus. Like a six-foot-tall bloodhound, he sniffs at the air, trying to lock onto any hint of it. It’s a long shot but about the only one he has right now. With the sun up he can’t just scour the streets, not without eventually causing a scene, and that much time under direct sunlight is gonna cause a major Virus problem.

As he sniffs the air he imagines what the boy would have thought when he awoke with the evidence of all those horrors on his hands. Probably doesn’t even give a shit. But he most certainly would become aware of the sunlight.

Based on the path of destruction, it seems like the majority of the action happened around this area. Ernie can hear people in the distance talking about the rabid animal in the streets, so he knows he is at least close to the scene.

He plays out the situation from the perspective of the boy. You live in a shithole town, have a shithole life and are totally familiar with death and violence. You think you have killed some guy in the street but then find yourself attacked by the same guy, only now he is leaking blood from his mouth all over you. The same bizarre monster sticks a needle in your arm and drains out blood, and then injects himself and passes out. As you run for help or to hide, you see that all your friends are beaten or dead and so you just run. You run into the street, but can’t go toward the familiar corner, ’cause it’s likely got the police there now. So you run where? To someplace you feel safe, to someplace you feel like you can protect yourself. A gang headquarters?

He thinks of how the boy would respond to finding himself compelled by something terrible, something uncontrollable that drives you to feed on people. Once the first drop hits your tongue you are in a haze of joy and carnage. Time has no meaning, your actions have no consequence, you lose your ability to consciously control your intentions, you only retain some vague connection to your humanity, as if you are watching from a distance as your body does what it is driven to do. In Ernie’s case the only time he found himself in a bloodlust was when he overused his small stash. Had he been on the streets and been tempted to tap a vein in some passerby, he would be in the same situation as this punk. Perhaps that is the important component of Gideon’s Farm. It does prevent killing.

Ernie is thinking about where the banger might go when the sun came up, certain that the sting of the sunlight would shake him from the bliss and push him to instinctually find shelter, when he catches it. His scent, but not from him. It’s the same but different. The way a mother animal can smell its cub. He knows the smell, and knows that it is somehow a part of him. It retains some small lingering essence of Ernie, but it is also changed. In movies they would call it the sire bond. The link between progeny and master. Considering that most everything related to the lore though is at best half-truths and at most just a bunch of made-up bullshit, Ernie doesn’t give the realization much reverence.

Once he has the smell in his nose he is able to focus down on it, filter out everything else but the Virus. As he does he again begins to see the ghost of the vapor trail, the lingering particles of the Virus hanging in the air. His eyes begin to spill over to black as he strains. The faint mist of molecules seems to spill into the subway line.

No. They spill
out
from the subway line.

--Of course.

Ernie shakes his head. Back into the tunnels, that’s where he would go, only a small fence to keep him from gaining access, no doors. That’s where the punk would run. Chances are also good that he is wide awake, aware, having come to terms with the changes. The only question is whether or not he understands what is happening to him. Does he realize that he is infected with something dangerous, or does he just revel in the amazing feeling of youth and strength?

Ernie needs to hop on to the back of the southbound line running downtown into Manhattan. He uses the crossover to make his way to the other platform, working hard to maintain his focus and to avoid eye contact with other travelers. Being the only white boy in a train station notably darker is already drawing enough attention—if he makes it known that his eyes are reddish black too, he’ll be in for some significant scrutiny.

He settles into the shade on the back side of the crossover. He will try to make his way to a relatively empty car and then use the junction point between the cars to make his way out into the subway line once it is headed back underground.

The train rolls in, well after Ernie has been alerted to its presence. His senses are so tuned that he is once again aware of its approach minutes before its arrival in the station. The back two cars are relatively vacant considering the time of day, and he hops into them. As the trains pulls out, heading southbound into the tunnel, the sky above begins to open its bounty onto the earth below, splashing large drops of rain onto the train.

Once the train has made it into the tunnel a few feet, Ernie heads to the crossthrough. He slides open the heavily weighted doors and pushes his way into the junction. The door that would allow him to exit from this area and into the tunnel is locked, likely with some sort of magnetic deadbolt. He kicks his foot into the door and with ease dislodges the housing for the deadbolt and swings the door wide into the tunnel. It catches on a passing support girder and slams closed, cracking the hinges and sending the doors tumbling into the tunnel.

--Shit!

He can hear the puzzled sounds of concern coming from the other passengers on the train. If he is going to get out without any other questions, he needs to jump out now.

This is going to hurt, no matter how amped up he is—he isn’t going to get out of this without some major injuries. He grits his teeth and swallows. Peers out the door and is able to see the oncoming girders. He waits for them to pass and times his jump perfectly, propelling himself out of the car and into the subway tunnel.

As he moves through the air, time nears a crawl. He is aware of everything around him, his momentum, how to respond to the inertia and his descent onto the ground. He twists and turns, contorts his body so that his feet are facing the outside wall of the northbound lane. He lands with his left foot on the wall and pulls his right leg in allowing him to quite literally tuck and roll out of the spill.

After four quick head-over-foot somersaults, he stands up. His arms and pants are dusty and dirty, but there is no other evidence of an injury on his body.

--Hmm?

After a moment he is overwhelmed by the smell of the Virus. His abilities immediately switch focus from suiting his kinesthetic needs and center on the senses. This is certainly a new development and something that Ernie is still unfamiliar with—how his abilities seem to be even further increased since the Rage, but how they seem almost selective. He can focus on any one and it improves, but at the expense of something else.

The Virus is everywhere. Like a house being fumigated, there are thick ropes of smell hanging in the air and whirling clouds of vapor being spun by passing trains before settling back into the air. The scent is flowing out from a source. He begins to make his way toward it, certain that he is at least on the right trail to the boy.

As he makes his way further into the network of tunnels he becomes acutely aware that he is not alone in this tunnel. That he and the punk he is tracking are not the only infected people in the tunnels. He can pull out a separate smell. The other blond man he saw just a few nights ago, chasing that thing on the roof. He’s down here too. Probably tracking the little shit as well.

Chapter 23

London, 1828

It has been a very long time since Antonios first made his way from the Seaport of Constanja.

He had stowed away on the Neiir Dom, a commercial shipping vessel with clean papers whose crew made most of their lucrative treks with their willingness to conceal additional shipments deep in the belly of their cargo hold, free from taxes and tariffs. Antonios had overheard two sailors in a port side pub discussing the rumors of the ship being a smuggling vessel, and Antonios immediately knew that this was his way out of Romania. After he had gorged himself on their blood and stuffed their bodies into an oak barrel he found himself imagining that that by remaining at sea he could limit the carnage his condition caused.

That night as the ship was anchored out in the bay, he swam out to it and pulled himself up the ragged rope of the anchor. Wanting to minimize his harm, he hid in the shadows of the lower deck. Two weeks into the journey, after he had killed the third seaman to have drunkenly made their way below, the rumors on the boat began to spread about a curse. Hushed whispers that a demon lived below the deck. Some sort of monster, a punishment from God. When they stopped at the next port he left in the middle of the night, taking refuge in another ship for the next few weeks.

He did this for years, in the process traveling to numerous foreign shores. He spent his time learning various languages as he had in the woods, learning secrets of boat captains and passengers, overhearing plans of mutiny, coups d’état, treachery, opportunity. In that time he enriched himself with a great deal of knowledge about the world and, even more important, a great deal of information on the powerful people within it. Details about people and their businesses. The willingness of those without scruples to brag about their secretive efforts to others equally bereft of morals was striking.

The time at sea changed his view of humanity. Having heard the secrets of so many, his contempt for mankind and the illusion of decency eventually gave rise to a plan. An awareness that he appeared to be the only human he encountered still clinging desperately to humanity. A way for him to further his own interests absent the restraints he had for so long put on himself.

Yes, his time at sea was enriching. However, nothing benefited him more than the knowledge that he could control his hunger. Control his desire. He had discovered in all those years at sea that he could refrain from going on a rampage and pull himself back from a continuous blood lust. Sure, he had left many ghost ships over the years, vessels absent any living crew members, sailing blindly into the seaside of various harbors, while he himself swam to shore in the night. But in these rampages he gained strength, he learned control.

Antonios finally arrived in London, armed with a great deal of information which he used to elevate himself to a man of status. With status and wealth he could apply resources to understanding his condition. Though he had heard so many refer to him as a demon or monster, he knew this to not be entirely true. He was not pure evil, but he was being pushed by a thirst, by something inside him. It would be nearly a generation before Ivosky discovered the Virus and nearly another thirty years from then before the explosion of information on infectious diseases and bacteria.