– Jesus. How long ago?
– Oh, several weeks now.
– And he's still alive?
– Well, that's a subject for some debate, is it not?
I watch as Daniel strokes the brow of the dying Enclave. He's right, they do all fail, the Enclave, fail and die. That's what happens when you stop feeding. The Vyrus wants you to feed, needs you to feed. It strengthens you, sharpens your senses and motivates your body so that you will feed and consume more blood that will in turn feed it. Stop feeding and it will begin to consume your own blood, just as your body will eat itself if you deny it food. The Enclave feed only the barest amount. Are they doing it out of principle, denying themselves in order to spare the lives of others? No. They're doing it because they're a bunch of fucking spooks.
Jorge's breath is becoming more ragged, his lips peeling away from his gumless teeth, mouth stretched open, the air whistling in and out of his throat. Daniel leans forward and puts his mouth close to Jorge's ear and whispers to him. Shit, he's gonna croak right now. I start to get up to leave the room, but Daniel waves me back down. I don't want to see this, but you do what Daniel tells you when you're in his house.
Jorge's back arches off the floor and his fingers claw at the sleeping mat, digging little furrows in the thin bamboo reeds. Daniel is lying next to him now, pressing his body against Jorge's, stroking his face, whispering nonstop, chanting something. Crackling sounds are coming from Jorge's mouth, not like sounds he is making, but more as if something were breaking within him, echoing up his esophagus. His eyes fly open and thick white pus begins to ooze from their sockets. The crackling noise gets louder and his skin jumps and twitches as if bugs and snakes are trapped beneath it, struggling to burrow out. He begins opening and closing his mouth, his teeth snapping and gnashing at the air. The white puss is pouring down the sides of his face and one of his bugging eyes pops out of its socket and lolls against his cheekbone, and his head thrashes and bangs against the floor.
– Help me, Simon.
I don't move.
– Help me.
I crawl over, grab his tremoring legs and try to hold them down, but they kick loose.
– Hold him, Simon.
I grab the legs and pin them to the floor. He kicks and jerks and I force the legs back down and lie across them and he almost kicks free again. Daniel has wrapped his arms around Jorge's arms and torso. Still he beats and struggles and nearly bucks us both loose. His other eye has popped free, they both swing at the ends of their cables of nerves and blood vessels as his head shakes and twitches. He arches high in the air once, twice, and again. Each time his back cracks back down against the floor I hear bones breaking in his body. He's making vomiting noises now and it looks like he's spewing up his lungs. He arches high again, tossing both Daniel and me off of him, and smashes back onto the floor, and that's it. He lies there, his body barely recognizable as human, still and dead. Daniel stands up and offers me his hand. I ignore it and get up on my own.
– Thank you, Simon.
I stare at the remnant of Jorge.
– Someone took my stash, Daniel, all my blood.
He gives a slight laugh.
– I'm afraid you've come to the wrong place for a free meal.
The Enclave don't believe in the Vyrus. Or they believe in it, but they don't believe that it's a natural occurrence. Or they believe that it's natural, but not physical. Or something like that. What they believe, what I understand they believe, is that the Vyrus is supernatural in origin, not of this world. They believe in a whole supernatural universe. They believe that when you are consumed wholly by the Vyrus, your physical being becomes matter in the supernatural world, but your conscious-self expires. What they aspire to, what the whole starvation thing is about, is their belief that by starving yourself gradually, you can maintain your consciousness and self, and be made over into a supernatural being that will exist in this world. I don't know why that appeals to them, but it does. Of course, so far they've all ended up like Jorge. For centuries they've been ending up like that. Except Daniel.
We're sitting on the bottom step of the stairs that lead up to the cubicles, watching the Enclave as they go through their exercises. They're doing some Tai Chi kind of thing. So slow and precise you can't see them moving at all.
I look at the wall where they hung Jorge. They spread-eagled his body and spiked him to the cinderblock. Daniel is looking at him, too.
– We'll leave him there until his flesh rots away and his bones fall to the floor. He'll serve as a reminder and object lesson as to the transience of the physical. We'll meditate on his decay.
I could have been a part of this. I could have lived here with these freaks and devoted my life to the discipline of slowly dying. When I left the Society, Daniel sent for me. I had never met him before, never been on Enclave turf, but I went. I had just gone Rogue, if I wanted to survive I needed as many allies as I could get. I thought he might be looking for an errand boy, someone to handle security or something. What did I know? Instead he asked me to join, offered me a place as Enclave. It was kind of flattering, in the way it might be flattering if the craziest, baddest gang on the street offered you their colors. I declined, told him thanks and crossed my fingers as I went out the door, hoping they wouldn't tear me to pieces for turning them down. But that's not how they work. The Enclave don't take volunteers, they handpick new members, and once you're picked you're a part of them for life, whether you like it or not. Daniel says you're Enclave because you are made that way, not because of anything you do.
I say that's all well and good, but I'm still not planning on going out like Jorge did.
– The guy you sent to talk to me said someone was watching me.
– Was that anymore than what you already knew?
– Fuck sake, Daniel, can you just give me a straight answer?
– You haven't asked any questions.
I look away from Jorge.
– You know about the carrier, about what happened at the school?
– Yes.
– 'Course you do, you know everything.
– Quite the contrary, I know virtually nothing.
– Yeah, right, in the big picture we're all fucking retards, but you know what goes down, Daniel. So the school, you know someone was poking around in there, someone who didn't leave a scent?
– Yes.
– Whoever it was is the same person who stole my stash, and I want to know who it is and why they did it. That's my question, Daniel, that's what I want to know.
He runs his spidery fingers over the top of his bald head.
– It's the wrong question, Simon.
– Then what's the right question? Will you tell me that, will you tell me that so I can ask it and get a straight answer?
– The question isn't who, but what.
– Bull.
– Someone has summoned it and bound it and sent it to do their bidding.
I stand.
– OK, time for me to go.
He reaches out and takes my hand. His skin is burning. He's starving the Vyrus, and so it has seized control of his autonomic functions, jacking his metabolism impossibly high as it compels him to feed. Dying slowly, balanced at the edge of starvation, the Vyrus gradually consuming him, he is continually in the grip of a feeding frenzy. It is the last death rattle of the Vyrus, when it empties your system of all its reserves, driving you to hunt. This is the state the Enclave cultivate, it is where Daniel has existed for no one knows how long. As strong as we may be when well fed, we are that much stronger when we are at the brink of starvation. Daniel holds my hand gently. If he twitches hell pull my arm from its socket. I don't move.