Blood on the Bricks, Part 1

There was no snazzy intro to the video, it started abruptly with a view of a wall of cardboard boxes. Sitting between the camera and the boxes as a thin-faced man with blond hair. The sides of his head had been shaved, and the remainder of the hair swept back. Adjusting his posture, he came fully into the center of the camera’s field of view. He had a narrow, sharply pointed nose and intense green eyes. Setting his narrow shoulders, he started to speak.

“I’m new to making these internet videos, so forgive the low production values. Since everyone else has been trying to make money off of my story, I figured I should try to do the same.” He adjusted the camera so it focused more on him than the cardboard. “Since every reporter and his editor has spilled my info all over the place, there’s not much point in trying to hide behind a codename. I am Charles Speer, sometimes known as the New Port Arthur Vampire. Now, we’re not talking goth kids playing neckbiter, or some crazy guy who collects blood, but the real deal.” He hooked his fingers in the corner of his mouth and pulled back his lips far enough to reveal grossly exaggerated canine teeth. Taking his fingers back out of his mouth, he resumed talking as he wiped off the saliva. “Those chompers aren’t implants or prosthetics, they are my original cuspids grown to twice their proper length. Before we go any further I have to say it’s not illegal for me to be a vampire. What’s illegal is going around biting people and drinking their blood. I’ve never done anything of the sort, and I have no intention to.”

Charles paused, drawing in a deep breath.

“Anyway, for those of you who don’t know, I actually became a vampire by getting shot.” He paused again. “That’s going to take a lot of explaining.” Settling in, Charles looked at the camera. “Before all this started, I lived in a part of New Port Arthur known as The Bricks. It is the second worst neighborhood in terms of crime, and only because Riverside is so awful that it just can’t compete. So, when I was a bystander in a drive-by shooting, it would have just been another statistic. Yes, this city is riddled with costumed heroes, but by the time they’re on the scene of a drive-by, the shooters are gone. Not being a gang member, I wasn’t the target. They missed the actual target, only hitting me and a zombie.”

Charles visibly collected his thoughts. “Now I know that sounds strange, but if a zombie has eaten enough recently, they’re actually rather docile. This one was apparently sated and wandering the streets looking for all the world like a stoned-out junkie. Well, the bullet that hit me passed through the zombie first, and buried itself in my guts. The bullet itself probably didn’t carry any infectious material, but the blood splatter that followed it from the zombie’s exit wound did. The real target ran, and the zombie wandered off, so I was the only one on the scene when authorities arrived. I was taken to Mercy Hospital.” There was a jump cut as something was edited out of the video.

“Being close to Riverside and the Bricks, Mercy has a lot of experience dealing with gunshot victims. So they fish the bullet out and stitch up my guts. Naturally, with a perforated intestine, they figure my fever is the result of sepsis. So I’m on antibiotics to clear up a condition I might have had on top of everything else. My fever doesn’t get any better and I have a violent allergic reaction to sunlight that results in my skin starting to burn off. Mercy had no idea what was going on, and I don’t blame them. They boxed me up in a biohazard gurney and shipped me off to Vanguard. Took them a while to pin down the symptoms as Raposat Syndrome and start me on antiretrovirals.”

Charles thought for a moment.

“I may be mispronouncing Raposat Syndrome. But, if you prefer medical greek, it’s Viral Hematophagic Athananthropy. I know some people out there are going ‘but you got the virus from a zombie’. The thing is, all three forms of Viral Athananthropy are caused by the same virus. While its in your cells making more of itself, the virus injects genetic material into the nucleus. The effect it has depends on what other genes you’ve already got. Most people become zombies. That is, they develop the Neurophagic form of the disease. Because both the Sarcophagic and Hematophagic forms of the disease describe the diet of the victim, the term ‘Neurophagic Athananthropy’ has led to the misconception that zombies eat mainly brains. It actually refers to the cognitive degeneration the victim undergoes as they become effectively a walking vegetable seeking only to eat. Zombies can actually eat anything normal people can eat, but they don’t recognize most food as food. As a result, they try to eat anything that moves. They typically only manage to catch pets, livestock, and people. But I digress. It’s the same virus, but I had the genes that caused me to develop the Hematophagic form and become a vampire.”

Absent-mindedly, Charles bit his lower lip, wincing as his malformed canines cut into the inside flesh. With red showing on his teeth, he hurried through his words. “I did find a job I can do, but it’s minimum plus a dollar, and I’ve got some serious medical bills to pay. If you want to help out, I’ll put the links below.” Covering his bleeding lip, Charles turned off the camera.

* * *

The video started with Charles more centrally in the frame than he had been. He had on a blue button down shirt and a black undershirt with no distinct collar that just stopped at the bottom of his Adam’s apple. He gave a weak smile. “I have to apologize how the last video ended. The doctors at Vanguard had ground down my canines so that they were blunt. It was a great idea, that lasted about a week. One upside of my condition is that I regenerate from other injuries, so the sharp points on my teeth came back. It also means that the skin burned off by the sunlight grew back. The hair on that skin hasn’t grown in yet, so I ended up shaving the other side to match. Hopefully it just takes time to come back.” He ran his fingers along the bare skin on the left side of his head.

“Another thing that isn’t so visible is that I can now see into the infrared. I’ve been thinking; wracking my brain for any way to describe what it looks like. I realized I don’t have the words for it. All of our language about color is based upon a shared frame of reference. At some point, someone held up an object of a particular color and gave it a name. Everything else was built on that frame of reference. I so desperately want to explain what the color of heat looks like, but I can’t find common ground to even start from. So, I’ll have to stick to the impact it has. I can’t turn it off anymore than regular people can opt to stop seeing blue. So when I look at a screen, it looks like the device is failing and all the colors are off. I can still use them, but it’s not the best. The doctors at Vanguard did think up a really simple solution.”

With a grin that showed off his fangs, Charles held up a pair of cheap eyeglasses with black frames. Putting them on, his smile dropped.

“I know they look awful, but they did come from a dollar store. On the other hand, the lenses are opaque in the infrared, so I can see normally.” Charles sighed. “Because I can regenerate, however slowly, and can see into the infrared, I am legally considered a powered individual for the purposes of the BHA. What that means is that I either have to pay for the tests to officially record the parameters of my abilities or pay the default insurance premium. I think it’s tens of thousands of dollars a month. Nobody pays the default, but I can’t afford the tests. From the abilities identified, my personalized premium would be downright trivial, but the BHA only accepts reports from a small number of accredited testing institutions. I have been reaching out to potential sources of financing, but with my existing debt, and a job that doesn’t pay that well, I’m not hopeful. That’s part of the reason I started e-begging in the previous video. I have gotten a line on some gig work that could pay better, but I’m still waiting to hear back on that.”

Charles sat back into his chair.

“For anyone who’s been paying attention to the news, you’ve probably heard about some disease popping up in New Port Arthur. What they won’t say is that it’s Viral Athananthropy. We’re getting a rash of zombies and zombie attacks in the Bricks, and possibly Riverside. There have also been rumors of ghoul sightings. There’s no confirmation, but as I said, the same virus that creates zombies also creates ghouls, so it’s entirely possible. This is a godawful state of affairs. Zombies mindlessly try to eat people, but ghouls have at least some of their faculties, but have a strong urge to eat people. I tried to research whether they are still able to feed on normal food, but the internet only served up folklore. From what we know, it could be that their digestive tract is able to process normal food, but they’re compelled to eat people. Alternatively, it could be unable to process normal food anymore. If I eat anything other than blood, I have serious trouble digesting it, and a miserable time until it passes. Luckily animal blood works fine.” Charles gave two thumbs up. “But that leaves the question of where ghouls fall on that spectrum. The last attempt to study them was in the nineteenth century and focused on methods of killing them. No one has actually tried to figure out if a ghoul needs to eat people or can survive on other meat. Behaviorally, they only eat raw meat as far as anyone has observed. If I had to speculate, I’d say a ghoul could probably survive on animal meat. I’m basing that on my own condition.”

Charles paused, visibly thinking.

“On one hand, I want to be informative and correct misinformation about Viral Athananthropy, but on the other hand, I don’t want to just be a boring guy who talks to the camera all the time. If I get this gig job, I’ll be able to bring my camera along. In fact, I’ll have to for legal reasons. That should provide more interesting footage. But for the time being, I still have to ask for help. If you want to contribute, you know where the links will be.”

* * *

The image in the video was mostly a plain wall of white tiles. In the lower right was a panel overlaid into the video that showed washed out shades of blue.

“All right,” Charles said, his voice coming from off to the right. “Before we get into the serious stuff, there’s something I’ve got to show you guys.” Panning to the left, the camera fell on a mirror affixed to the tile wall. In the image was an empty collar, and a floating pair of thick framed glasses. Behind them was a paper towel dispenser. “It’s true, I really don’t have a reflection. Now, everything I’m wearing does have a reflection, as you can clearly see. But it’s something I really expected to just be more folklore.” There was a pause, and the angle of the floating eyeglasses changed. “By now you will have noticed this second video panel. It is an infrared camera. I don’t own it. It’s on loan for liability reasons. If I’m made a liar and can’t get the thermal images, I’m going to sound a little silly, but I’m going to go on as if I can get both video feeds.”

“It all has to do with the gig job I mentioned. I’ve been looking at the news, and no one seems to bother to get the real information. They keep talking about our outbreak as if Viral Athananthropy is just some sort of seasonal cough. We’ve got zombies. And someone has got to deal with the zombies. There are a few reasons I got the job. If they get bitey, I regenerate, so I’ll recover faster. Also, I don’t risk turning into a zombie, since I am already a vampire instead. I can see into the infrared, so I can identify which ones are already dead. And, there’s a chance they might not attack me right away. Anyway, I’ll explain more as it becomes relevant. But first I have to leave these glasses behind.” Gloved hands reached up and took down the floating glasses, folding them into a hard-sided case.

“You may have noticed this odd collar that doesn’t have a collar,” Charles said, pointing to the edge of his visible attire. “This is a bona-fide hero suit. The Community Fund donated protective equipment for those of us who are going to deal with the zombies. It’s supposedly easy to sanitize and better suited to potential fighting than the classic moon suits for diseases. I hate it, but I don’t want to be a disease vector.”

He sighed.

“Right now, I’m in the basement of a shuttered business in the Bricks. There’s a door back here that leads to the steam tunnels.” He turned, the camera view settling on a door. “That’s not it.” Charles opened the door and stepped out into a plain concrete hallway. At the end of which was an unmarked steel door. “That one’s it.” His footsteps echoed loudly along the concrete as Charles approached the second door. It proved to be locked, and he knocked. A man dressed in a positive pressure biohazard suit opened the door. His face was obscured by a blur filter in the video. The passage beyond ran perpendicular to the concrete hall. Its walls were lined with insulated pipes, a few with faded markings, but most plain white.

“Are you going to talk to that camera all night?” the man in the hazard suit asked.

“I’m narrating to my audience.”

“Leave me out of it.”

“All right,” Charles said.

The video jump cut to a view of the tunnel at a point where it was blocked by a set of wrought iron bars. “These steam tunnels run under most of downtown and the Bricks. These gates are here to keep people from using them to get into buildings they’re not supposed to be in. They also do a good job at keeping zombies corralled.” Charles held up a small brass key for the camera to see, then unlocked the gate in front of him. He stepped through and locked it again. Following the tunnel, he turned a corner. There was another gate along the passage. Behind it, a crowd of figures milled aimlessly. Their unfocused gazes stared off into the distance as if there was nothing around them. Each wore filth-stained street clothes. In the panel for the infrared, most were room temperature. Charles pointed to the one that was not.

“That guy is still generating body heat. In fact, I think he’s running a fever. That means he’s still alive. The rest of these poor souls are already dead, but their bodies haven’t stopped moving yet. Legally, he’s just a person with a disease, and needs to get to treatment. Of course, since he’s shambling along with the other zombies, he’s so far gone he’ll act just like the others. But I notice they’re not reacting to me. In fact-” Charles paused, getting something out and fiddling with it just out of frame. “It’s not showing up on my phone camera, but I can see some sort of aura around the zombies. If they see the same thing around me, that would explain why they are not reacting. Though I’m pretty sure they’ll do something if I start being hostile. Anyway, I have to go in there and restrain the infected guy who’s still alive. He doesn’t have enough cognitive ability to make rational decisions, but we need to prevent him from infecting others. And killing him is out of the question. This is why I have the thermal camera – so I can show my employers that I did not hurt any infected living.”

A few unfocused gazes turned Charles’ way as he approached the gate. They gave no more reaction, and several shambled away again. Charles drew in and released a deep breath.

“I don’t honestly know how close I can get without the zombies reacting. I hope I can just walk right past them, but to be honest, I’m scared to open this gate. Well, here goes.” Charles unlocked the wrought iron gate and stepped through. A few groans arose from dead throats, but the zombies continued their aimless milling about. Moving no faster than the undead around him, Charles stepped between the ambling corpses. Turning his body to avoid direct contact, he negotiated the crowd. Cautious footfalls took him closer to the lone zombie with a body temperature and a heartbeat. Charles gingerly took hold of the infected man’s left arm and slipped half of a pair of zip ties over his wrist. As the vampire drew the man’s other arm towards the restraint, the zombie resisted, pulling against Charles’ grip. As soon as the ties were tightened, the man began to vocalize his protest. Short, inarticulate wails escaped his slack lips as he tugged against the plastic.

A dozen pairs of unfocused eyes turned on Charles.

“Um, I think they’re figuring out I’m an impostor.”

As the first lunged, a flash of silver crossed the image, and the video went dark.

* * *

A few seconds later, the video returned, showing Charles sitting in front of his wall of cardboard, dressed in a button-down shirt and his thick-framed eyeglasses. He looked directly into the camera. “Well, I reviewed the video from the fight. Unfortunately, because of the camera I’m using, it’s either a blur, or very shaky. Even when there is a clear image, it was rather gruesome. The end effect is likely to cause someone to throw up. It’s what I get for trying to record a real fight on a cheap camera. The last frame I included was when I drew my sword.” Reaching beside his chair, Charles picked up the weapon in question. It was a two-foot, straight, double-edged blade with a simple grip and pommel. The steel shone in the light.

“You may be wondering why a guy living in the Bricks owns a sword and not a more practical defensive weapon. Well, that’s a bit of family drama. My mom wasn’t known for having stable relationships. One of her more serious boyfriends was a guy we moved in with when I was about thirteen. He had a hobby as a bladesmith, and we made this together. He did most of the work, I mainly fetched things and got in the way a lot. It started out life as a leaf spring, and now it’s pretty effective at defending me against zombie attacks. Anyway, I’m not going to go into why they broke up, but it wasn’t long after that we ended up back in the Bricks.”

Charles sighed and put the sword away.

“After the fight we got me and the steam tunnel decontaminated, and got the living guy to medical quarantine. It’s too late for him with the treatments we know about. But, they’re going to try to find his next of kin to get permission to try alternative treatments. You see, Viral Athananthropy can be stopped by antiretroviral medications. If you get bit and get treated within the first ten to twelve hours, you can avoid any of the transformation or genetic changes. I say bit, but any bodily fluid from an infected person can spread it. Usually, that’s saliva or blood. It does not survive in aerosol droplets or on surfaces pretty much at all. With enough antivirals, you can eliminate it from a living host too. Before the zombie fight, I had zero viral load. Right now, I’m in quarantine and being tested to see if it’s possible to get reinfected after being cleared. I really hope I’m just plain immune at this point.”

Charles smiled.

“So, that’s my gig job. I get the same hazard pay as any regular people who do it, but it’s not as much of a hazard for me. So, with the help I’ve gotten from you guys, and the check I’ve got coming, I can start to make a dent in my medical bills. On the plus side, the Community Fund has agreed to run the powers test and let me pay the cost in installments. So, if all goes well, once I’m out of quarantine, I’ll be insured by the BHA, and not at the default rate. Still, while this is looking good, there’s a mountain of debt left. If you want to help, links are where you’d expect to find them.”

* * *

The video started with Charles sitting, slouched in his chair in front of the cardboard boxes. His complexion was splotchy, and more pallid than it had been. His shirt was rumpled, and the top two buttons undone. He roughly pushed his hair back with his fingers, and looked at the camera. The sclera of his eyes was dark red, with a brighter red ring around the outside of his iris. Close to the pupil, the iris was still bright green. Forcing himself into a more upright posture, Charles found his voice. “I really hate the BHA,” he said. Wiping a hand over his mouth as if looking for spittle, he paused for thought.

“There’s a whole heap of bad news running around. Zombies popped up in Riverside. Riverside is full of people, well, a large group of them are still of a mind to shoot anyone who sets foot in their turf. Especially anyone as pale as I am. To try to contain the spread, the authorities have established a cordon around the neighborhoods where Zombies have been found.” He sighed. “Of course, Riverside and the Bricks have a certain demography, so people are complaining. People who’ve never seen a zombie in real life.” Charles grumbled and sat back.

“Well, before the cordon came down, I tested clean. That doesn’t mean I’m immune to reinfection, but it doesn’t disprove the possibility. Since we hadn’t yet gotten locked down, I could go and get my powers tested. At first it was all boring, with nothing outside of normal… um, well, normal human ability. Actually, I sucked. Then we had a meal break.” Charles shook his head. “I should have fasted. Instead I had a thermos of blood with me and drank more than I tended to. The result was that the numbers after the meal were too different from those before to be coincidence. So we reran some of the pre-break tests and got values better than the first run. The people from the BHA insisted we find out exactly what effect drinking blood has on my abilities.”

Casting a pensive glance off to the side, Charles continued. “At the time, I was all for finding out. We started with chicken, pig and beef blood because they were easy to buy on the open market. The scientist from the Community Fund doing the testing wanted to see if the freshness of the blood mattered. I think he actually arranged for the animals to be on the property, live. Don’t quote me on that though, I just did what I was told. The answer was yes, freshness impacted the strength of the effect, and the volume determined the duration.”

“Fine,” Charles spat, “That’s all well and good. I wanted to stop there, since we have a whole bunch of good info. Nnnnooo, the BHA wasn’t satisfied. They said they couldn’t certify my liability rate unless we tested the mammals I lived closest to. That meant rat, cat, dog, and human blood.” Charles tensed up, clenching his jaw and balling his hands into fists. He closed his eyes and forced himself to calm down. Flexing his fingers with deliberate effort, Charles loosened his muscles before looking back into the camera.

“Cat, dog, even rat I could stomach just for the test. But I strenuously protested against human blood. They insisted, and I really can’t afford the default rate.” Drawing in a long breath, Charles let it out slowly, puffing out his cheeks as he did so. “So, we tested. No surprise, I handled the animal blood just fine. If you recall, I may have mentioned a mild craving back before I’d been exposed to human blood. Well…” He absent-mindedly licked his lips. “That was before. Now… Now I think I know what a junkie feels like when he can’t afford another hit. There’s this gnawing hunger in my gut that just doesn’t want to be ignored. It’s… not as strong as it was the night after the test. I’ve gone and barred myself into my place to avoid contact with anyone, lest… lest I fail… lest I bite them. I’ve… lost my regular job. The one that was a dollar over minimum. I wasn’t there very long, and I stopped showing up… so I can’t blame them.”

Charles began running the heel of one palm along the length of the other hand as his eyes sought anything to look at but the camera. Eventually, looking off into the distance, he resumed speaking. “The one bright spot… is that it’s not as bad as it was. The city hasn’t fired me from the gig cleaning up zombies. In fact, they’ll probably welcome me back if… if I can manage to control this. They need people, and just being able to walk through crowds of zombies unmolested is useful.” Charles closed his eyes and drew a few deep breaths. Without opening them, he resumed speaking. “The powers I get from animal blood are neat, and differed by species. Beef gave me strength. Cat made me turn invisible, clothes too. Stuff like that. But it was human blood that really turned it all up to eleven. I wasn’t breaking any records. I mean, I wasn’t as strong or as tough as your average flying brick, but I was almost in their weight class. I moved quickly enough to almost be called a speedster. I could even fly.” He opened his eyes and looked into the camera.

“It makes it even harder to resist this addiction. And that’s what it is. There’s nothing else I can describe it as. So I have to ask, if instead of blood it were something else; if I ever a recovering junkie who happened to gain more powers if I was on heroin, would the BHA have forced me to shoot up to get their numbers?”

A pleading look crossed Charles’ discolored eyes as he reached forward and the video ended.