"What blood?" Lacey said.
Carole lifted her eyes. "The blood he needs to survive."
"Oh, that." Lacey shrugged. "He can have some of mine whenever—"
Joe slammed his hands on the table. "No!"
"Why the hell not? You had—what?—three or four drops and that was all you needed. Big deal."
"The amount is not the point! A drop, a gallon, what difference does it make? It's all the same! I'm acting like one of them—becoming a bloodsucking parasite!"
"They take it by force. I'm giving this to you. You don't see the difference? It's my blood and I have a right to do whatever I want with it. If I were giving a pint at a time to the Red Cross to save lives you'd say what a fine and noble thing to do. But giving a few drops to my own uncle—a blood relative, don't you know—is wrong?"
"Your giving isn't the issue. My taking—that's the problem."
"What problem? Since I'm volunteering, there's no ethical problem. So if it's not ethics, what is it? Esthetics?"
He stared at her. "What are you? A Jesuit?"
"I'm your niece and I care about you and I want to get the sons of bitches who did this to you. With you as you are—part undead, part human—we might have a chance to do real damage. But if you're going to let a little squea-mishness get in the way—"
"Lacey!" Carole said, giving her a warning look.
Joe had closed his eyes and was shaking his head. "You have no idea what it's like... to have loathed these vermin and then be turned into one. To spend every minute of the rest of your existence knowing you are a lesser being than you wish to be, that everything you were has been erased and everything you hoped for or aspired to will be denied you." He opened his eyes and glared at her. "You ... don't... know .. . what... it's ... like."
Lacey's heart went out to her uncle. Yes, she could imagine maybe only a tiny fraction of what he was suffering, but she couldn't let him surrender. He had to fight back. She had a feeling that what they decided here tonight could be of momentous importance, and it all hinged on him. That was why she had to push him.
"I don't pretend to. But we can't turn back the clock. You've been dealt a lousy hand, Unk—an unimaginably lousy hand—but right now it's the only one you've got. And it may hold some hidden possibilities that we'll never be able to use if you fold and leave the game. I know it seems easy for me to sit here on this side of the table say it, but it's a simple truth: you have to accept what's happened and move on. Take it and turn it back on them. Use it to make them pay. Make them wish they'd never heard of Father Joe Cahill. Make them curse the day they ever messed with you. If all it takes is a few drops a day of my blood—which I'm more than willing to donate to the cause—then where's the downside? They tried to make you like them but something went wrong. They failed. You're not like them—you know it and Carole knows it and I know it—and a few drops of blood is not going to change that."
Lacey leaned back, winded. She glanced at Carole who gave a small nod, just one.
Joe seemed lost in thought. Finally he shook himself and said, "We'll see. That's all I can say now .. . we'll see." He looked out at the growing light filtering through the salt-stained picture window. "Let put this aside and go out and watch the sunrise."
JOE . . .
Lacey's words tumbled back and forth through Joe's brain as he followed the two women down to the churning water.
Accept it and move on . . .
Easy for her to say. But that didn't mean she was wrong.
Yet... how do you accept being subhuman?
Turn it against them and make them pay . . .
That he could understand. Take this aching emptiness inside and fill the void with rage, pack it in like gunpowder in a cartridge, then take aim at those responsible for what he'd become.
Carole had called him a weapon. That was what he would become.
He joined Carole and Lacey at the waterline and stood between them. Gently he placed a hand on each of their shoulders, Carole flinching but not pulling away, Lacey leaning against him. He realized he loved them both, but in very different ways.
He noticed Carole checking her watch as the sun hauled its red bulk above the rumpled gray hide of the Atlantic. Immediately he sensed its heat, just as he'd felt the fever of the setting rays last night.
Lacey turned to him. "You're okay?"
"I can tell I'm more sensitive than I ever was in life, but it's nothing I can't tolerate."
.. . than I ever was in life. . .
How indescribably strange to be able to say that.
Lacey smiled. "Maybe we'll just have find you some SPF 2000 sun screen."
"I'm just grateful I won't have to live like them—hiding in the day and crawling out only at night. I don't know if I could take that."
They stood for a while with the waves lapping at their feet and watched the birds and the surf and spoke of how the undead plague hadn't affected the beauty of the world or touched its wildlife. Humanity had borne the full brunt of the assault.
Lacey said, "Some of my radical ecology friends, if they're still alive, probably think it's all for the good—the fall of civilization, I mean."
Carole shook her head. "How could they possibly—"
"The end of industry, of pollution, overcrowding, all that stuff they hate. No more forests being raped, no more fluorocarbons depleting the ozone, all their causes made moot because the undead don't seem to be into technology."
"Only the technology that helps them keep their 'cattle' alive. Franco went on to me about how once you've turned, your existence becomes entirely focused on blood. All the other drives—for money, knowledge, achievement, even sex—are gone. The undead are immune to cold and see in the dark so they have no interest in keeping the electricity running except as far as their cattle need it to survive. Even so, I'll bet the power will be off more than it's on. Over time I can see the level of technology declining and the world devolving into some sort of pre-industrial-level feudal order. They don't seem to need technology. Or perhaps have no mind for it is better way of putting it. They already call their human helpers 'serfs.' That will be the social order: undead lords, serfs, and herds of human catde."
"If only the Internet were still around," Lacey said. "We could communicate, organize—"
"The Internet is history, I'm afraid—with no reliable power source, few working phone lines, and a decimated server network, it's a goner."
Joe felt his skin beginning to tingle, as if the sand were blowing, but there was no breeze. He glanced at the sun and thought it looked considerably brighter than a few moments ago. Hotter too.
"Is anyone else hot?"
Carole and Lacey shook their heads.
"No, not really," Carole said.
Lacey spread her arms and lifted her face to the glow. "It feels good."
"Does anyone mind if we go back inside? It's a little too warm for me."
He turned and started back up the dunes; Carole and Lacey came along, one on either side. As they neared the house, Joe felt his exposed sunward skin—the back of his neck, his arms, his calves—begin to heat up, as much from within as without.
With the growing discomfort pushing him toward the house, he quickened his pace. Or tried to. He felt unsteady. His legs wobbled like an old man's—a drunken eighty-year-old's. Still he somehow managed to pull ahead of Carole and Lacey.
"Unk!" Lacey cried from behind him. "Unk, your skin!"
He looked down and saw that his skin was starting to smoke wherever the direct rays of the sun touched it. He broke into a lurching run.
The sun! Cooking him! Had to escape it, find shade, shelter, darkness! The very air seemed to catch fire around him, glowing with white-hot intensity. A heartbeat ago the house had been less than a hundred feet ahead, now he couldn't find it through the blaze of light. And even if he could he doubted he'd reach it on these leaden legs. His knees weakened further and he stumbled, but felt a pair of hands grab his left arm before he could fall.