The Fall (The Strain Trilogy 2)

He searched for his dad’s professional page at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and got a “Page Not Found.” So they had already scrubbed him from the government Web site. News hits for “Dr. Ephraim Goodweather” claimed he was a discredited CDC official who fabricated a video purporting to show a human-turned-vampire being destroyed. It said that he had uploaded it (actually, Zack uploaded the video for him, one that his dad wouldn’t let him view) onto the Internet in an attempt to exploit the eclipse hysteria for his own purposes. Obviously, that last part was BS. What “purposes” did his dad have other than trying to save lives? One news site described Goodweather as “an admitted alcoholic involved in a contentious custody battle, who is now believed to be on the run with his kidnapped son.” That left Zack with a lump of ice in his chest. The same article went on to say that both Goodweather’s ex-wife and her boyfriend were currently missing and presumed dead.

Everything made Zack feel nauseous these days, but the dishonesty of this article was especially toxic to him. All wrong, every last word. Did they really not know the truth? Or… did they not care? Maybe they were trying to exploit his parents’ trouble for their own purposes?

And the talkback? The comments were even worse. He could not deal with the things they were saying about his dad, the righteous arrogance of all these anonymous posters. He had to deal right now with the awful truth about his mom—and the banality of the venom spewed in blogs and forums missed the point completely.

How do you mourn someone who isn’t really gone? How do you fear someone whose desire for you is eternal?

If the world knew the truth the way Zack knew the truth, then his dad’s reputation would be restored, and his voice heard—but still nothing else would change. His mom, his life, would never be the same.

So, mostly, Zack wanted it all to pass. He wanted something fantastic to happen to make everything right and normal again. As when he was a child—like five or something, he broke a mirror and just covered it with a sheet, then prayed with all his might for its restoration before his parents found out. Or the way he used to wish his parents would fall back in love again. That they would wake up one day and realize what a mistake they had made.

Now he secretly hoped that his dad could do something incredible. Despite everything, Zack still assumed that there was some happy ending awaiting them. Awaiting all of them. Maybe even something to bring Mom back to the way she was.

He felt tears coming, and this time he didn’t fight them. He was up on the roof; he was alone. He wanted so badly to see his mother again. The thought terrified him—and yet he yearned for her to come. To look into her eyes. To hear her voice. He wished for her to explain this to him the way she did every troubling thing. Everything is going to be just fine…

A scream somewhere deep in the night brought him back to the present. He peered uptown, seeing flames on the west side, a column of dark smoke. He looked up. No stars tonight. And only a few airplanes. He had heard fighter jets zooming overhead that afternoon.

Zack rubbed his face in the crook of his elbow sleeve and turned back to the computer. With some quick desktop searching, Zack discovered the folder containing the video file he was not supposed to view. He opened it and heard Dad’s voice, and realized Dad was operating the camera. Zack’s camera, the one his dad had borrowed.

The subject was hard to see at first, something in the dark inside a shed. A thing leaning forward on its haunches. A guttural growl and a back-of-the-throat hiss. The slinking noise of a chain. The camera zoomed in closer, the dark pixilation improving, and Zack saw its open mouth. A mouth that opened wider than it should, with something resembling a thin silver fish flopping inside.

The shed-thing’s eyes were wide and glaring. He mistook their expression for one of sadness at first, and hurt. A collar—apparently, a dog collar—restrained it at the neck, chained to the dirt floor behind it. The creature looked pale inside the dark shed, so bloodless it was nearly glowing. Then came a strange pumping sound—snap-chunk, snap-chunk, snap-chunk —and three silver nails, propelled from behind the camera (from Dad?) struck the shed-thing like needle-bullets. The camera view jerked up as the thing roared hoarsely, a sick animal consumed with pain.

“Enough,” said a voice on the clip. The voice belonged to Mr. Setrakian, but it was not a tone like anything Zack had ever heard out of the kindly, old pawnbroker’s mouth. “Let us remain merciful.”

Then the old man stepped into view, intoning some words in a foreign, ancient-sounding language—almost like summoning a power or declaring a curse. He raised a silver sword—long and bright with moonlight—and the shed-thing howled as Mr. Setrakian swung the sword with great force…

Voices pulled Zack out of the video. Voices from the street below. He shut the laptop and stood, staying back, peering over the raised edge of the roof down to 118th Street.

A group of five men walked up the block toward the pawnshop, trailed by a slow-moving SUV. They carried weapons—guns—and were pounding on every door. The SUV stopped before the intersection, right outside the front of the pawnshop. The men on foot approached the building, rattling the security gates. Calling, “Open up!”

Zack backed away. He turned to go to the roof door, figuring he’d better get back to his room in case anyone came looking.

Then he saw her. A girl, a teenager, high school probably. Standing on the next roof over, across an empty lot around the corner from the shop entrance. The breeze lifted her long nightshirt, ruffling it around her knees, but did not move her hair, which hung straight and heavy.

She stood on the raised edge of the roof. The very edge, balanced perfectly, no wavering in her posture. Poised at the brink, as though wanting to try to make the jump. The impossible leap. Wanting to and knowing she would fail.

Zack stared. He didn’t know. He wasn’t sure. But he suspected.

He raised a hand anyway. He waved to her.

She stared back at him.

Dr. Nora Martinez, late of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, unlocked the front door. Five men in combat gear with armored vests and assault weapons stared her down through the security grate. Two of them wore kerchiefs, covering their lower faces.

“Everything all right in there, ma’am?” one of them asked.

“Yes,” said Nora, looking for badges or any kind of insignia and seeing none. “So long as this grate holds up, everything is fine.”

“We’re going door-to-door,” said another. “Clearing blocks. Some trouble down that way”—he pointed toward 117th Street—“but we think the worst of i

t is moving downtown from this direction.” Meaning Harlem.

“And you are…?”

“Concerned citizens, ma’am. You don’t want to be in here all alone.”

“She’s not,” said Vasiliy Fet, the New York City Bureau of Pest Control Services worker and independent exterminator, appearing behind her.