Z Children (Book 2): The Surge (30 page)

“All
the cars are parked blocks away.” Josh’s voice is strained.

“The
limo. We’ll take the limo. The driver is already supposed to be waiting for the
send-off,” my voice breaks as I say send-off. Things can change so fast. The
meaning of something can change so fast.

“The
limo.”

Josh
looks at me frantically, his eyes are a wildfire of fear and hope. But a soft
cry pulls his gaze back down. And I know that there’s no time. Blaire’s having
a more intense seizure now, her small frame nearly jumping off the flooring.
Josh is quick to hold her down. I see her tongue, flicking in and out of her
mouth spastically and I think that there’s something we should do for that,
something to keep her from biting herself. Her eyelids are fluttering; her
black hair is beginning to lose its curl from the sweat wetting her brow and
scalp. The moan that slipped through her slightly parted lips sent an arrow
through my heart. Anita whimpered, falling to her knees, the phone falling from
her grip and skidding across the floor.

“Daddy…”
It is a trailing whisper that precedes what could only be a death rattle. It’s
wrong. She’s too young. Just turned five. She should be nearer to baby rattles
than the Reaper.

“Baby,
I’m here. I’m here. Daddy’s here. He’s always here.” Josh lifts her body,
cradles her to him. “You’re fine, honey. You’re fine.” He continues to rock
her. Anita is sobbing, covering her face with her hands. She knows what I know,
what Josh has not accepted. The little body is already unmoving, the skin
cooling fraction by fraction. Blaire is gone. Daddy’s girl is gone.

“Josh,”
I say his name, not loudly, but I say it in a way that I hope tells him that I
am here for him if he needs me. But he doesn’t understand. Not yet. “Josh,” I
say his name again. He doesn’t respond. The happiness of the day is gone.
Shattered. Obliterated by a loss that the simple human mind could not possibly
understand.

My
mind reeled. A series of images cycling over and over as I struggled to
understand what had just happened. A hand touched my shoulder and I whirled
around. I was sweating again, the wetness soaking through my dress shirt,
through my jacket. I wasn’t nervous now. I was dying inside. Dying on a day
that should be the most brilliant light, one that I could look back on when I
was an old man, rocking next to Consuela on our front porch.

But it
wouldn’t be.

Our
marriage was already tainted by the darkest omen I could imagine. I felt guilty
for even worrying over that, over my love and what this did to me and Consuela.
Josh and Anita and the boys. God, their loss.

And my
wife was staring at me now as if I’d lost my mind. No. That’s not how she was
looking at me. Her expression was horrified. She was going face-first down the
same mad rollercoaster I was.

“She
can’t be gone. She can’t be gone,” Josh was nearly screaming the words now.

I
turned to see my brother’s face buried against his only daughter’s neck. My
nephews were kneeling next to Anita now. My ring bearer, his face hardened with
a different type of focus now held his mother’s hand. He still wasn’t acting
like himself. It was just the day, though—the pressure, the stress and now…now
the tragedy. My oldest nephew was crying. And there was nothing weak about the
tears.

All of
a sudden, I felt ice cold. The sweat had dried, leaving me frozen and
shivering. Consuela wrapped her arms around my body. We were cheek to cheek and
I could feel the dampness on her face. She too had cried.

“Blaire!”
It was Anita’s voice, and it sounded relieved and disbelieving.

Pulling
myself away from the warmth of my bride, of her steady breathing and calming
force, I looked to the gut-wrenching scene again. I didn’t want to, but the
sound of Anita’s voice had made even me hope that the past minutes were nothing
but a daymare.

Blaire
was moving, small jerky flutters of life that make me feel lighter than air.
She was alive. She was fine. Her eyelids began to open, slowly, but surely. Her
chest rising and falling as she re-inflated and rejoined the living. Everything
was okay.

Josh
was over-the-moon seeing her move. He stood with her in his arms, one swift
motion full of elation, and he twirled her in the air. I wanted to caution him
against jerking her around. We still didn’t know what had caused the episode or
how she’d started breathing again. But he wouldn’t be stopped, it would have taken
a massive force. “Blaire! Oh, baby, thank God.”

The
watchers, still gathered around us, were smiling and wiping away tears. They
began to repeat his words, thanking God that she was okay. Out of my peripheral
vision, I could see Father Donahue walking towards us. His face was also alive
with the spirit, with the miracle.

But I
knew something was still wrong.

Blaire’s
eyes were open wide now.

They
were not the chocolate brown I was accustomed to seeing. They were obscured by
a thick, milky haze. Her skin, usually so tan that it was warm to the touch as
if the sun had permanently imparted some of its radiance to her, was paler that
it should be.

“Blaire,”
I said her name slowly, with a meaningful lilt that I hoped would get my
brother’s attention. “Sweetheart. How are you feeling?”

Moving
towards her and away from Consuela—who was still trying to hang onto my upper
arm and keep me close—I lifted the fingers of my left hand and stroked her dark
hair. Once. Twice. A third time. Josh had long since stopped spinning her
about, perhaps realizing the foolishness of his reaction, realizing his
daughter needed medical attention not excitement.

Blaire
didn’t respond to my question, so I asked again, “How are you feeling?”

She
looked at me, but my gut told me that what she saw was not computing. Her face
tilted downward and away from me to stare at Josh’s chest. He was cradling her,
whispering incoherently in relief.

“We
need to get her to a doctor.” I didn’t direct the statement at Josh or Anita.
They were too consumed with their daughter not being dead. Instead, I was
speaking to Consuela behind me.

“I’ll
go see if the limo driver is outside and will take us.”

I
nodded without looking at her. Something made me keep my gaze glued to my
niece, to the raven-dark hair atop her head, to the way she was nuzzling her
face against her father’s chest.

And
then Josh was yelling. Screaming in pain. Anyone else might have dropped their
child, but he didn’t. I saw his fingers sink deeper into Blaire’s body, his
arms tightening their hold. He wouldn’t drop her. Not his precious girl, not
for any amount of pain she caused him. When Blaire lifted her head, her mouth
was painted crimson with my brother’s blood. He was rocking her, cooing,
desperately trying to calm her down. Josh didn’t care about himself, not even a
little bit. He was wounded and his daughter was lowing her mouth to his body
again. But he didn’t care.

“Blaire,
baby. Blaire, I need you to stop that. We’re going to get you to the hospital,
sweetheart. We’re going to find out what’s wrong.” His face went ghost-pale as
she bit him again. Tears welled up in his eyes and then streamed freely down
his cheeks. He dropped to his knees, still rocking his baby girl. “We’re going
to find out what’s wrong.”

I
watched in abject horror as Blaire bit my brother yet again. We were all too
stunned to react. And even if we weren’t, how were we supposed to react? She
was a child. A small child.

Consuela
returned as Blaire pushed herself away from Josh and stood on shaky legs that
quickly became steady. The child, who I now did not recognize as my niece—she
couldn’t be my niece…something else had taken her place when she’d been so
still, so deathly motionless—looked at me and advanced a step. Consuela gasped
beside me and I slammed my arm into her body, forcing her behind me.

Anita
was shuffling across the floor on her knees, trying to get to Josh. “Honey, are
you okay? Baby…God, Blaire…I don’t understand.” She was almost to her husband
when Blaire redirected her focus from me to her mother. I could tell by the
tilt of her head that she was also taking in the sight of her two brothers
cowering not too far behind. Her small mouth opened and the sound that came out
of her body now was not sick or feeble. It was predatory and cutting.

My
sister-in-law scrambled back away from Josh until she was with her sons. Blaire
was advancing quickly, her upper body leaning forward so far that I was sure
she was going to drop to all fours and race like an animal toward the remainder
of her small family.

She
attacked the smallest first. The easiest. The nephew in the handsome tux who
had concentrated so hard on walking down the aisle perfectly with our rings.

I
launched forward, desperate to help Toby.

I was
too late. Her mouth had sunk into his upper thigh and I knew from the amount of
blood spurting out like some bad b-rated horror movie, that she’d hit the
femoral artery. He’d bleed out in seconds. I yanked Toby away from Blaire, but
she didn’t care. There were two other victims waiting. I heard my eldest
nephew’s screams slicing through the event space like poison as I tried to stay
the flow of Toby’s blood with my tie. I couldn’t stop it, though. My efforts
weren’t enough. In minutes, he stopped moving, stopped breathing. His last
words were
‘Uncle Andy, it hurts.’

The
whole world went quiet for me as I held my nephew. It was like a dome of
silence had fallen around me and the small body. I couldn’t concentrate. I
couldn’t recognize the way the carnage was spreading around me—all because of
one little girl. If she could be called that.

Shock.

I was
in shock. That’s what it was. I needed to get up. I needed to find Consuela. I
needed to help everyone. The limo was still outside. I hoped it was still
outside.

I
couldn’t seem to move. I couldn’t seem to move Toby’s body away from my own
until Consuela’s distinct scream broke through the quiet and sent my pulse
thundering across the room, around overturned tables and broken chairs, to
where she was fighting for her life. Then I was dropping Toby, discarding
him—like a rag doll that meant nothing, even though he meant so much—and racing
towards my wife of barely an hour. I only looked back once. Once.

Bile
rose in my throat as I saw Toby begin to move. I shook my head disbelieving,
turned around, and refocused.

Consuela
was pushed into a corner facing off against my niece and…and my brother. I
swirled, taking in the state of the entire room. I’d been lost while holding
Toby…oblivious. Were we the only two left unhurt? Unchanged?

Picking
up one of the folding chairs, I flattened it and lifted it like a pro-wrestler,
ready to smash it down. Blaire was closest and I prepared myself, but I
couldn’t slam the metal down. I couldn’t hurt my niece. It was still her.
Wasn’t
it?

“Josh,
I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt Blaire.”

He
hears me, his body slowly rotating away from Consuela. He looks too pale, ashen
beneath the lingering summer tan, and his lower lip is drooped open, a line of
spittle slowly making its way down his chin. “Josh?”

His
eyes are like Blaire’s now, opaque, his dark irises almost fully obscured. “Andre?”
It is a question, like the memory of who I am is no longer clear, like I am a
stranger with a face that is almost-recognizable. His voice is garbled, heavy
with mucous. “Andre?” Again. My name. A question.

We are
all paused for a moment. My eyes flicked to Blaire, who was staring at me. Her
tongue flicked out in a quick movement to wet her mouth. Like a cat. It was a
predatory move that tightened her eyes and stiffened her body. I raised the
chair again and this time I know that I have to hit her. I don’t have a choice.

She
launched at me, rising off the floor in a graceful movement that is both
mesmerizing and terrifying. Consuela was shrieking, covering her eyes with her
hands, saving her brain from what I was about to do. I wish I could do the same.
I do not want this scorched into my memory.

The
chair is flying through the air, as fast as I can move my arms, and it slams
into Blaire’s small body, throwing her backwards against the glass french doors
that lead to the church gardens. The panes shatter and she is slumped against
broken glass and busted frame. Her blood spurts obsidian, black as pitch.

“God.
God, I’m so sorry,” the words fall out of my mouth like marbles from a loose
pouch. They tap against the floor in succession and then roll away, lost
beneath a table and made meaningless.

I turn
away from the horrifying picture, framed in vivid colors, and I find Josh. The
look on his face chills me to the core. And then he is coming for me. And I am
raising the chair again and I am hurting my brother. As the metal slams into
his kneecaps, I nearly sob. Somewhere in this room, is my sister—my talented
sister with her violin—my mother, my father. All of the people I love.

“Andy.
Oh, Andy, what’s happening? God, I don’t understand. How can this be happening?”
Consuela is still covering her face. Her entire body vibrates violently until
her knees give way and she sinks to the floor with a cry of anguish.

But we
don’t have time to languor in our grief. The room is filled with the sound of
teeth gnashing and snapping. Low growls and desperate moans. “We have to go,
baby. We can’t stay here.”

“We
can’t. We have to help them. Mama. Papa.” Her words, like puzzle pieces being
ripped asunder, fell apart. It killed me to hear her sound that way, the first
time in our relationship—which had been through its fair share of trials—that
her voice had sounded so absolutely hopeless.

“We
have to go, babe. We just have to.”

“No!
No!” She’d fought me then, swinging out with weak punches, trying to push
around my body so her eyes could find the faces of the only family she had.