from them. I stop. He's still for a moment, and then turns his head and looks up at me. He smiles and points at my white burnoose.
– Simon, how nice of you to dress for your visit.
Daniel looks like death. Exactly how you would expect death to look if he ever showed at your bedside with a scythe and a long list bearing your name inked in blood. Hairless, bone-white skin stretched tight over the skeleton beneath. He looks like death because he's dying. That's what they're all up to in here, slowly starving themselves to death.
We're walking up the stairs to the loft that runs along the back of the warehouse, and despite his skeletal state Daniel bounces lightly up the steps, radiating verve and barely restrained energy. At the top of the stairs he leads me down a narrow corridor that runs between a series of identical cubicles, each one containing nothing but a floor mat and a water jug. He steps into one of the cubicles on the left and I follow him in. There's an Enclave lying on the mat, shivering and sweating and nearly as wasted as Daniel. Daniel nods at him.
– He's failing.
Yeah, no shit.
Daniel points at the floor in a corner and I go sit there. He settles himself on the floor next to the dying Enclave, placing a hand on his forehead and gently stroking the sickly skin. The Enclave stops shivering.
– Failing, Simon, as we all do.
– All except you, right, Daniel?
He smiles, shrugs.
– Time will tell. But Jorge here, he's failing very quickly.
– Why?
– He's something of a fundamentalist in his beliefs. He chose to stop feeding entirely.
– 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
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.
