Setrakian returned to his rented villa. He sat heavily in a chair, holding his head in his bloodied, broken hands, and waited for nightfall—for the dark hour of his dear wife’s return.
She came to him out of the rain, free of the crutches and braces that had steadied her limbs all her human life. Her hair hung wet, her flesh white and slick, her clothes drenched with mud. She came to him with her head held high, in the manner of a society woman about to welcome a neophyte into her circle of esteem. At her sides stood the two village children she had turned, a boy and a girl still sick with transformation.
Miriam’s legs were straight and very dark. Blood had gathered at the lower portion of her extremities and both her hands and feet were now almost entirely black. Gone were her infirm, tentative steps: the atrophied gait which Setrakian had tried nightly to alleviate.
How completely and quickly she had changed from the love of his life into this mad, muddied, glaring creature. Now a strigoi with a taste for the children she could not bear in life.
Crying softly, Setrakian rose from his chair, half of him desiring to let it be, to go down into hell with her, to give himself over to vampirism in his despair.
But slay her he did, with much love and many tears. The children he cut down as well, with no regard for their corrupted bodies—though with Miriam, he was determined to preserve a part of her for himself.
Even if one understands that what one is doing is mad, it is indeed still madness—cutting the diseased heart out of one’s wife’s chest and preserving it, the corrupted organ beating with the craving of a blood worm, inside a pickling jar.
Life is madness, thought Setrakian, done with his butchering, looking about the room. And so is love.
The Flatlands
AFTER HAVING A last moment with his late wife’s heart, Setrakian uttered something that Fet barely heard and did not understand—it was “Forgive me, dearest”—and then went to work.
He sectioned the heart not with a silver blade, which would have been fatal to the worm, but with a knife of stainless steel—trimming the diseased organ back and back and back. The worm did not make its escape until Setrakian held the heart near one of the UV lamps set around the edge of the table. Thicker than a strand of hair, spindly and quick, the pinkish capillary worm shot out, aiming first for the broken fingers that gripped the knife handle. But Setrakian was much too prepared for that, and it slithered into the center of the table. Setrakian chopped it once with his blade, splitting the worm in two. Fet then trapped the separated ends using two large drinking glasses.
The worms regenerated themselves, exploring the inside rim of their new cages.
Setrakian then set about preparing the experiment. Fet sat back on a stool, watching the worms lash about inside the glass, driven by blood hunger. Fet remembered Setrakian’s warning to Eph, about destroying Kelly:
In the act of releasing a loved one… you taste what it is to be turned. To go against everything you are. That act changes one forever.
And Nora, about love being the true victim of this plague, the instrument of our downfall:
The undead returning for their Dear Ones. Human love corrupted into vampiric need.
Fet said, “Why didn’t they kill you in those tunnels? Since it was a trap?”
Setrakian looked up from his contraption. “Believe it or not, they were afraid of me back then. I was still in the prime of life, I was vital, I was strong. They are indeed sadists, but, you must remember, their numbers were quite small back then. Self-preservation was paramount. Unbridled expansion of their species was a taboo. And yet they had to hurt me. And so they did.”
Fet said, “They are still afraid of you.”
“Not me. Only what I represent. What I know. In truth, what can one old man do against a horde of vampires?”
Fet did not believe Setrakian’s humility, not for a moment.
The old man continued, “I think the fact that we don’t give up—this idea that the human spirit keeps going in the face of absolute adversity—puzzles them. They are arrogant. Their origin, if confirmed, will attest to that.”
“What is their origin, then?”
“Once we get the book, once I am completely certain… I will reveal it to you.”
The radio started to fade, and Fet first thought it was his bad ear. He stood and turned the crank, powering the unit, keeping it going. Human voices were largely absent from the airwaves, replaced by heavy interference and occasional high-pitched tones. But one commercial sports radio station still had broadcast power, and though apparently all of its on-air talent were gone, a lone producer remained. He had taken up the microphone, changing the format from Yankees-Mets-Giants-Jets-Rangers-Knicks talk to news updates culled off the Internet and from occasional callers.
“… the national Web site of the FBI now reports that they have Dr. Ephraim Goodweather in federal custody, following an incident in Brooklyn. He is the fugitive former New York City CDC official who released that first video—remember that? The guy in the shed, chained like a dog. Remember when that demon stuff seemed pretty hysterical and far-fetched? Those were good times. Anyway… it says he’s been arrested on… what’s this? Attempted murder? Jeez. Just when you think we might be able to get some real answers. I mean, this guy was at the center of the whole initial thing, if memory serves. Right? He was there at the plane, at Flight 753. And he was wanted for the murder of one of the other first responders, a guy who worked for him, I think the name was Jim Kent. So, clearly, there’s something going on with this guy. My opinion—I think they’re gonna Oswald him. Two bullets to the gut, and he’s silenced forever. Another piece in this giant puzzle that no one seems to be able to put together. Anybody out there has any thoughts on this, any ideas, any theories, and your phone is still working, hit me up on the sports hotline…”
Setrakian sat with his eyes closed.
Fet said, “Attempted murder?”
“Palmer,” said Setrakian.
“Palmer!” said Fet. “You mean—it’s not some bogus charge?” Fet’s shock quickly turned to appreciation. “Gunning down Palmer. Christ. Good ol’ doc. Why didn’t I think of that?”