The Fall

“Your kind will exist in a manner beyond all hope. I have delivered to you a new Messiah, and the reckoning is at hand. The mythmakers were right, save for their characterization of the second coming of a Messiah. He will indeed raise the dead. He will preside over the final judgment. God promises eternal life. The Master delivers it. And he will establish his kingdom on earth.”

“And what does that make you? The kingmaker? It sounds to me like you are one more drone doing his bidding.”

Palmer pursed his dry lips in a condescending manner. “I see. Another clumsy attempt to instill doubt in me. Dr. Barnes warned me against your stubbornness. But I suppose you have to try again and again-”

“I’m not trying anything. If you can’t see that he’s been stringing you along, then you deserve to get it in the neck.”

Palmer held his expression steady. What worked behind it-that was another matter. “Tomorrow,” he said, “is the day.”

“And why would he deign to share power with another?” said Eph. He sat up, his hands dropping below the table. He was winging it here, but it felt right. “Think about it. What sort of contract is holding him to this arrangement? What’d you two do, shake hands? You’re not blood brothers-not yet. Best-case scenario, by this time tomorrow you’ll be just another bloodsucker in the hive. Take it from an epidemiologist. Viruses don’t make deals.”

“He would be nowhere without me.”

“Without your money. Without your mundane influence, yes. All of which”-Eph nodded at the anarchy below them-“exist no more.”

Mr. Fitzwilliam stepped forward then, moving to Eph’s side. “The helicopter has returned.”

“And so it is good evening, Dr. Goodweather,” said Palmer, wheeling back from the table. “And good-bye.”

“He’s been out there turning folks for free, left and right. So ask yourself this. If you’re so damn important, Palmer-why make you wait in line?”

Palmer was rolling slowly away. Mr. Fitzwilliam hoisted Eph roughly to his feet. Eph was lucky: the silver knife he had hidden, tucked inside his waistband, only grazed his upper thigh.

“What’s in it for you?” Eph asked Mr. Fitzwilliam. “You’re too healthy to be dreaming of eternal life as a bloodsucker.”

Mr. Fitzwilliam said nothing. The weapon remained tight against Eph’s hip as he was led away, back up to the roof.

RAINFALL

THUD-BUMP!

Nora shivered at the first impact. Everyone felt it, but few realized what it was. She didn’t know much herself about the North River Tunnels that connected Manhattan and New Jersey. She guessed that, under normal circumstances-which, let’s face it, didn’t exist anymore-it was maybe a two-to-three-minute trip total, traveling deep below the Hudson River. A one-way trip, no stopping. The only way in or out through the surface entrance and exit. They probably hadn’t even hit the halfway point, the deepest part, yet.

Bam-BAMM-bam-bam-bam.

Another hit, and the sound and vibration of grinding beneath the train’s chassis. The noise traveling from the front, bumping beneath her feet all the way to the back of the train, and gone. Her father, driving her uncle’s Cadillac many years ago, once ran over a big badger driving through the Adirondacks; this noise was almost the same, only bigger.

This was no badger.

Nor, she suspected, was it human.

Dread enveloped her. The thumping roused her mother, and Nora instinctively grabbed her frail hand. In response, she got a vague smile and a vacant stare.

Better that way, thought Nora, with an extra chill. Better not to deal with her questions, her suspicions, her fears. Nora had plenty of her own.

Zack remained under the influence of his earbuds, eyes closed, head bobbing gently over the backpack on his lap-grooving or maybe dozing. Either way, he was unaware of the bumps and the sense of concern growing in their train car. Though not for long…

Bump-CRUNCH.

A gasp went up. Impacts more frequent now, the noises louder. Nora prayed they would get through the tunnel in time. The one thing she had always hated about trains and subways: you can never see out the front windows. You don’t see what the driver sees. All you get is a blur. You never see what’s coming.

More hits. She thought she could distinguish the cracking of bones and-another!-an inhuman squeal, not unlike a pig.

The conductor evidently had had enough. The emergency brakes engaged with a metallic screech, grating like steel fingernails against the chalkboard of Nora’s fear.

Standing passengers grabbed seatbacks and overhead racks. The bumping slowed and became agonizingly more pronounced, the weight of the train crushing bodies beneath them. Zack’s head came up and his eyes opened and he looked at Nora.

The train went into a skid, its wheels screaming-then a great shudder and the interior compartment shook with a violence that threw people to the ground.

The train shrieked to a stop, the car tilted to the right.

They had jumped the track.

Derailed.