The Raven Read online

  Jim stood, dusted off his hands. “Anyone inside?”

  Despite his hunger, Dez’s appetite shriveled. “No one alive. There’d been…there’d been a family. Man, woman, three kids. The woman and the kids were barely recognizable. They’d been devoured. Even the marrow in their bones….” Dez paused. He realized his breath was coming in shallow heaves. “There were two compartments in the bunker. One right behind the small cedar door. That’s where we found the remains. And one down a long tunnel. We had to crawl to get there. I told the others I didn’t want to, but they told me they wouldn’t share any of the stuff we’d found if I didn’t go. The crossbow was the piece I wanted the most, though the others were more attracted to the heavy artillery. The M-16s…the AK 47s. The owner of the house, he must’ve been a real gun enthusiast.” Dez frowned. “Back when he was still human.”

  Jim walked by him, scooted an old walnut chair closer to the fire. “He a vampire?”

  Dez nodded. “The tunnel led to his room. It was….” He licked his lips. God, he needed water. “The room was equipped with weights. I realized the weight room and the bunker weren’t really supposed to be connected…not in any practical way. But—”

  Dez jolted as the first popcorn kernel exploded. He gripped his chest, heart thundering.

  Jim grinned. “Pull up a chair. The pot will really start thumping in a minute.”

  Dez retrieved the chair Jim had indicated and sat facing the fire. Dez couldn’t help wondering if anyone outside would see the gray rising from Jim’s chimney, or perhaps scent the woodsmoke in the air. Vampires, especially, had sensitive noses.

  Of course, it wasn’t dark yet.

  “You were saying about the weight room?” Jim prompted.

  Dez leaned against the chairback. “You know the apparatus called the Pec Deck?”

  Jim folded his arms. “The fly machine. Believe it or not, I used to lift quite a bit.”

  “The machine had been fitted with handcuffs. Soldered to the bars. The dad must’ve regressed into the vampiric form at some point, and this was their solution. Imprison Daddy in the weight room at night so he wouldn’t kill his wife and kids in a blood frenzy.”

  More kernels pinged within the pot. Jim sighed. “That never works.”

  “It didn’t. The place where the chains had been soldered to the machine, they were sheared off. You know how strong vampires are.”

  Jim didn’t comment. A fusillade of popping kernels went off like machine gun fire.

  “When we saw the torn chains, we were sure we were goners. You know, like in a horror movie? We’d turn and the vampire would be grinning at us, preparing to rip our throats out in a flurry.”

  The popping was well nigh unceasing now, but rather than amplifying Dez’s hunger, the staccato bursts jangled his nerves. Jesus, if anyone walked past the house, they’d surely hear it, wouldn’t they?

  “Thirty more seconds,” Jim said, perhaps sensing Dez’s disquiet.

  Dez took a breath. “Wagner saw it first. He was an obnoxious bastard, but he was good at sensing trouble. Of course, he caused most of it, but still….”

  Jim rose, crossed to the built-in bookcase, from which he fetched a pair of heavy umber work gloves. The popping was still frequent, but it had decelerated appreciably.

  To the old man’s back, Dez said, “The dad, vampire, whatever you want to call him, he’d shot himself in the roof of the mouth. The wall behind him was painted in a vertical streak, like shit smeared on a public restroom stall.”

  “Regretted killing his family,” Jim said, hefting the pot out of the fire. The popping had grown sporadic. Dez inhaled the aroma of fresh popcorn, and some of his hunger rekindled.

  Jim disappeared into the kitchen. Dez heard him clattering around in there. But though the logs were burning steadily now and the heat emanating from the fireplace was pleasant, the image of the fanged creature slouched in that shadowy corner wouldn’t be displaced from his mind’s eye. In movies, when a vampire died, he transformed back to his human form. Dez couldn’t imagine any vampire, clutched by the blood thirst, sticking a gun in his mouth and blowing his brains out. Which meant the man had killed himself in his human form and then transformed into a vampire. For reasons he couldn’t articulate, this fact unsettled Dez more than anything else about the gruesome affair.

  He twitched a little when Jim reentered. The old man clutched a pair of big silver bowls, each overflowing with white, fluffy popcorn. “Can’t provide butter, but there’s salt if you want it.” He handed Dez a bowl and sat in his chair. “I always like mine better without.”

  Dez inhaled the scent, which was unaccountably buttery, as though his memory were filling in the gaps for him so this experience could be as satisfying as possible.

  Jim began to munch popcorn, but he paused, smacked his forehead. “You’ll need water.”

  Dez rose. “So will you. Where is it?”

  “There’re jugs in the back of the pantry. It’s from the well, so you don’t need to worry about my poisoning you.”

  Dez set the bowl aside and went into the kitchen. The pantry was dark, but he could distinguish the large water containers lined up on the floor, the kind of ribbed jugs once used in churches and office buildings. It occurred to Dez as he waded into the murk and bent to retrieve a jug that now would be the perfect time for the old man to strike him with a blunt object. He didn’t think Jim was a cannibal, but you could never know something like that for sure.

  Dez spun, hand on the butt of his Ruger.

  The doorway was empty.

  He exhaled, turned back to the jug, which was two-thirds full, and lifted it one-handed. Before the world ended, he would never have been capable of handling such a weight, but now, with nothing better to do than to improve his body and his mind, he was able to tote it with little problem. He brought the jug to the kitchen table, went over and fetched a pair of tall yellow cups from a cabinet. He was about to return to the table when he spotted a small brass-framed photograph on the counter. It was a couple sitting in a folding lawn chair, the woman in the man’s lap. Both were grinning widely.

  It was Jim as a younger man. The woman, he assumed, was Mary. She was a frizzy-haired brunette with big teeth and plenty of curves. Jim looked even wirier than he was now. Hard, but lean.

  Dez hoisted the bulky bottle, tilted it, and carefully filled both cups.

  “Leave the jug out,” Jim called. “Popcorn gives me an awful thirst.”

  Dez carried the cups into the living room, supplied Jim with one. Dez drained half of his at a gulp. The liquid was tepid, but it was pure and delicious and set his flesh to tingle.

  Through a mouthful of popcorn, Jim said, “That was a roundabout way of explaining the crossbow.”

  Dez paused in mid-chew, thinking about it. He chewed a little more, swallowed. Delicious. “I guess I’ve been alone too long. Makes you want to talk when you get the chance.”

  “Some do,” Jim allowed.

  Dez shoveled popcorn into his mouth. “I thought microwavable popcorn wouldn’t work in a kettle. Aren’t they two different kinds?”

  “I worried about that too,” Jim said. “The first time I raided Gary’s factory, I only smuggled home a couple boxes. No use filling the pantry with stuff you couldn’t eat.”

  “Bet that was a happy discovery.”

  Jim grinned, popped a large white kernel into his mouth. “When this stuff started popping, I damn near danced a jig. A half-hour later I returned with the wagon bungied to the back of my bike.” He shrugged. “Could’ve taken the truck, but I like to leave that in the pole barn. Never know when I might need it. Anyway, with the bike and the wagon, I probably made twenty trips to the factory over the next couple days.”

  When Dez frowned, Jim explained, “There are more boxes in the basement. The pantry only holds so much.”

  Dez sipped his wat
er, set it on the floor. “When did you know you were a werewolf?”

  Jim’s reaction was so subtle Dez would have missed it had he not been watching for one. The man’s strong jaw muscles kept flexing, the steady chewing unbroken. Only in the eyes could Dez see the words had affected him. Where before they’d been sedate, perhaps a bit unfocused, now they were laser sharp, wary. And though Dez didn’t reach for the Ruger, he visualized himself doing so, a tactic he’d found useful in the past. You went through it in your head beforehand, when it came to doing it, it was easier, more fluid.

  Of course, with a werewolf, it probably wouldn’t make a difference.

  Jim took a slow gulp of water, ran a forearm over his lips. “How did you know?”

  “I wasn’t sure. Just a suspicion.”

  “But something gave me away.”

  Dez guzzled the last of his water, made sure his hand didn’t shake as he placed the cup on the floor next to the chair. “I ran afoul of a group of cannibals last night.”

  Jim was silent a long moment. At length, he said, “How many?”

  “Three. And the guy they had enticing victims for them.”

  Jim’s mouth curled in a sneer that Dez suspected was entirely unconscious. “Some people will do anything.”

  Dez asked, “What’s your catalyst?”

  Jim didn’t answer, instead finished off his water in a great swallow. Swiveling his legs toward Dez, he said, “Give me your cup. I’ll fill us up.”

  With an effort, Dez took his eyes off the man long enough to reach down and retrieve his cup. When he faced Jim, who stood above him now, looking down at him with an expression Dez couldn’t interpret, Dez said, “Thanks. It’s good water.”

  “Yes,” Jim said. “It is.”

  The werewolf stared at him a moment longer. Then he went to refill their cups.

  Chapter Eight

  B.F.R.C.

  October 22nd

  It might still be October 21st, but without a clock it’s difficult to tell. It sure seems late though, with the old man’s house so silent I can hear the nightbirds calling outside and the bugs scuttling around the walls.

  That’s one thing I can’t get used to, the difference two years have made in the animal and insect populations, not to mention the surge in plant life. If not for how lawless the new world is, it would be a veritable Eden. Though I’m not a skilled hunter, I’m surviving pretty well on what I kill or forage.

  But the fact is, life is extraordinarily dangerous.

  Take the old man who owns this house.

  How did I know Jim was a werewolf?

  Most regular humans – or Latents, if you want to be fancy – are dead. After the virus began to do its work, people started changing, but at first it was unnoticeable. Or barely noticeable. Vampires beginning to crave blood but dismissing their urges as anomalies. Werewolves, only slightly changed, going crazy in fits of road rage or battering their spouses because of petty disagreements.

  But at some point folks began to grasp the truth.

  The slow realization that we were surrounded by monsters.

  Yet even now, you can’t tell for sure, and that’s the worst part.

  Everyone looks human. No one looks like a monster, not all the time.

  I take that back. Satyrs, they say, are communal creatures whose horns are permanent fixtures. Supposedly, they’ve congregated into miniature societies and utilize their telepathic powers to keep their borders impregnable.

  So the satyrs are satyrs full time, or at least that’s what we were told in the colony. Ditto for the Children and the Night Fliers, who have always been beneath us, lurking in caverns and remaining dormant for decades at a time. That was a particularly shocking truth we all learned.

  But werewolves? Vampires?

  They look like we do.

  The really big shock was cannibalism.

  Oh, not the fact of it – in a way, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner. Whenever human beings become desperate for food, they turn to each other for sustenance, occasionally by the casting of lots but more often by brute power, the strong overtaking the frail and chowing on them until the next kill is needed.

  No, what surprised everyone was what eating flesh did for the cannibals.

  If you wanted to predict the end of the world, all you had to do was go back to the beginning of recorded history, examine the folklore of each society, and notice the patterns that emerged.

  For example, no matter how remote the region, every society – from the Native Americans to Australian Aborigines – possessed a vampire legend. All these societies spoke of shapeshifters.

  And all of them contended that by eating the flesh of another man, you could absorb his power.

  Why were we so surprised when it proved to be true?

  But only for some.

  If being a cannibal – an honest-to-goodness superhuman cannibal – were as simple as dining on someone else, everyone would do it. Well, not everyone. I certainly have never felt the desire to eat a person, and I’d like to think I never would, even in the direst of circumstances. That’s not just because it’s morally reprehensible to me, but also because the prospect is repugnant. Maybe I’m just too civilized.

  Or maybe there really has to be a desire there, a bloodlust not unlike the urge a vampire experiences before exsanguinating someone. I don’t know.

  All I know is that the revelation about cannibalism marked the final turning point for humankind. It’s when humans stopped being humans. Or at least when the majority of us did.

  Only about a tenth of the remaining population developed a taste for flesh. Of course, that figure is based solely on my limited experience. But in my small town of Shadeland, Indiana, the day the man tore a policeman’s arm from his body and proceeded to rip the flesh off it in gobbets, was the day it all started to come undone.

  The same day my father died. Died because I didn’t act quickly enough, bravely enough, or decisively enough.

  But I don’t want to talk about that now. What I want to do is sleep, though for some reason I can’t do it.

  Maybe it’s the werewolf in the house with me.

  Since I can’t sleep, and since I can’t bring myself to talk about the day my town fell, I’ll tell you why I knew Jim was a lycanthrope.

  For one, he’s alive. That’s a massive accomplishment. So massive that I’m deeply skeptical every time I encounter another supposed Latent. To have remained alive over the past two years, regardless of what manner of creature you are, would have taken a great deal of skill, though I tend to attribute it mostly to luck.

  Another factor to consider, as cruel as this sounds, is Jim’s age. The guy is simply too old to have survived this long, not without some special power.

  Remember Gentry? I was wary of him, despite his tattered appearance, because he appeared to be on the wrong side of fifty. Oh, I’ve seen Latents older than Gentry, but not many.

  Gentry was in his fifties. A man in his seventies would have to be an amazing individual indeed to have survived this long. I’m not saying it’s not possible – of course it’s possible. But a person that age would have had to fortify his home, amass a considerable arsenal, and remain constantly vigilant in order to scratch out any kind of life.

  This man’s home is not fortified.

  This man doesn’t appear to have much in the way of weaponry.

  Jim doesn’t seem worried about anything.

  But why, you wonder, did I assume he’s a werewolf?

  Cannibals travel in packs. They’re basically cowards who know they’re more powerful than normal humans but nowhere near as ferocious as the rest of the monsters now populating the world. To keep themselves safe, they seldom live alone. Like Jim.

  And he’s not a vampire, that much is certain. Contrary to legend, vampires can endure the sunlight, though
they much prefer the dark. Seeing a creature during the daytime isn’t a guarantee he isn’t a vampire, but it’s a strong indication.

  When a vampire spends time with a human, the bloodlust becomes overwhelming.

  A cannibal eats because of what he will gain.

  A vampire feeds because he cannot avoid it.

  A werewolf only transforms when something pushes him toward the change. Jim seems like a good guy with a curse.

  In a way, Stomper and Paul are far worse than any vampire. They could subsist on smaller game, like I do. The fact is, they like killing and eating people. They relish the power their diet provides.

  When I think of cannibals like Stomper and Paul and Judases like Gentry who’ll lead an innocent father and son to slaughter, deep down, a hideous refrain sounds in my brain: Maybe the scientists were right. Maybe humankind did need eradicating.

  I’d never say those words aloud, and if you find this record, you’ll think me a lunatic, or worse, a misanthropic sadist. Yet I don’t believe my heart has fully hardened. I don’t believe I’m some sinister, depraved creature.

  It’s just….

  The evidence is all around me.

  Humans have always been monsters. We just needed a push to embrace our shadow side.

  Which reminds me….

  We might as well get to this now. If you’re reading these journals, and I’m long gone, and if you weren’t around when everything went to hell in the world, you likely have some burning questions.

  Paramount among these, I’m guessing, is how the hell did it all happen?

  See, this is where it gets dicey because I’m certainly no scientist, and though I like to think I have a curious mind, I’ve never been outstanding at research. But I can tell you what I know, which admittedly isn’t much, because I’m sure you’re curious.

  You ever heard of ‘junk DNA’?

  I hadn’t, at least not before the Four Winds.

  DNA is coded and helps to create proteins in cells. This, remember, is the DNA we know about, the kind that’s mapped and responsible for our unique makeup.