“Story of my life,” I said.
“Stop being so stubborn, for once. Just go along with it. You look tired, Jack.” I sighed. “I am tired,” I said. And I was. I was feeling distinctly weak in her arms. I was sure she could sense it.
“Then why don’t you just relax. Embrace me, Jack.”
“I don’t know. Maybe you’re right.”
“Yes, I am.” She smiled again, ruffled my hair with her hand. “Oh, Jack… I really have missed you.”
“Me too,” I said. “I missed you.” I gave her a hug, squeezed her, held her close. Our faces were close. She looked beautiful, her lips parted, her eyes staring up at me, soft, inviting. I felt her relax. Then I said, “Just tell me one thing, Julia. It’s been bothering me.”
“Sure, Jack.”
“Why did you refuse to have an MRI in the hospital?”
She frowned, leaned back to look at me. “What? What do you mean?”
“Are you like Amanda?”
“Amanda?”
“Our baby daughter… you remember her. She was cured by the MRI. Instantly.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Julia, does the swarm have some problem with magnetic fields?”
Her eyes widened. She began to struggle in my grip. “Let go of me! Ricky! Ricky!”
“Sorry, hon,” I said. I kicked the plate with my knee. And there was a loud whang! as the magnet pulsed.
Julia screamed.
Her mouth was open as she screamed, a steady continuous sound, her face rigid with tension. I held her hard. The skin of her face began to shiver, vibrating rapidly. And then her features seemed to grow, to swell as she screamed. I thought her eyes looked frightened. The swelling continued, and began to break up into rivulets, and streams. And then in a sudden rush Julia literally disintegrated before my eyes. The skin of her swollen face and body blew away from her in streams of particles, like sand blown off a sand dune. The particles curved away in the arc of the magnetic field toward the sides of the room. I felt her body growing lighter and lighter in my arms. Still the particles continued to flow away, with a kind of whooshing sound, to all corners of the room. And when it was finished, what was left behind-what I still held in my arms-was a pale and cadaverous form. Julia’s eyes were sunk deep in her cheeks. Her mouth was thin and cracked, her skin translucent. Her hair was colorless, brittle. Her collarbones protruded from her bony neck. She looked like she was dying of cancer. Her mouth worked. I heard faint words, hardly more than breathing. I leaned in, turned my ear to her mouth to hear.
“Jack,” she whispered. “It’s eating me.”
I said, “I know.”
Her voice was just a whisper. “You have to do something.”
“I know.”
“Jack… the children…”
“Okay.”
She whispered, “I… kissed them…”
I said nothing. I just closed my eyes.
“Jack… Save my babies… Jack…”
“Okay,” I said.
I glanced up at the walls and saw, all around me, Julia’s face and body stretched and fitted to the room. The particles retained her appearance, but were now flattened onto the walls. And they were still moving, coordinating with the movement of her lips, the blink of her eyes. As I watched, they began to drift back from the walls toward her in a flesh-colored haze. Outside the room, I heard Ricky shouting, “Julia! Julia!” He kicked the door a couple of times, but he didn’t come in. I knew he wouldn’t dare. I had waited a full minute so the capacitors were charged. He couldn’t stop me from pulsing the magnet now. I could do it at will-at least, until the charge ran out. I didn’t know how long that would be. “Jack…”
I looked at her. Her eyes were sad, pleading.
“Jack,” she said. “I didn’t know…”
“It’s all right,” I said. The particles were drifting back, reassembling her face before my eyes. Julia was becoming solid, and beautiful again.
I kicked the knee plate.
Whang!
The particles shot away, flying back to the walls, though not so swiftly this time. And I had the cadaverous Julia in my arms again, her deep-set eyes pleading with me. I reached into my pocket, and pulled out one of the vials of phage. “I want you to drink this,” I said.
“No… no…” She was agitated. “Too late… for…”
“Try,” I said. I held the vial to her lips. “Come on, darling. I want you to try.”
“No… please… Not important…”
Ricky was yelling: “Julia! Julia!” He pounded on the door. “Julia, are you all right?” The cadaver eyes rolled toward the door. Her mouth worked. Her skeleton fingers plucked at my shirt, scratching the cloth. She wanted to tell me something. I turned my head again, so I could hear.
She breathed shallowly, weakly. I couldn’t catch the words. And then suddenly they were clear.
She said, “They have to kill you now.”
“I know,” I said.
“Don’t let them… Children…”
“I won’t.”
Her bony hand touched my cheek. She whispered, “You know I always loved you, Jack. I would never hurt you.”
“I know, Julia. I know.”
The particles on the walls were drifting free once more. Now they seemed to telescope back, returning to her face and body. I kicked the knee plate once again, hoping for more time with her, but there was only a dull mechanical thunk.
The capacitor was drained.
And suddenly, in a whoosh, all the particles returned, and Julia was full and beautiful and strong as before, and she pushed me away from her with a contemptuous look and said in a loud, firm voice, “I’m sorry you had to see that, Jack.”
“So am I,” I said.
“But it can’t be helped. We’re wasting time. I want the bottle of virus, Jack. And I want it right now.”
In a way it made everything easier. Because I understood I wasn’t dealing with Julia anymore. I didn’t have to worry about what might happen to her. I just had to worry about Mae-assuming she was still alive-and me.
And assuming I could stay alive for the next few minutes.
DAY 7
7:12 A.M.
“Okay,” I said to her. “Okay. I’ll get you the virus.”
She frowned. “You’ve got that look on your face again…”
“No,” I said. “I’m done. I’ll take you.”
“Good. We’ll start with those vials in your pocket.”
“What, these here?” I said. I reached into my pocket for them as I went through the door. Outside, Ricky and Vince were waiting for me.
“Very fucking funny,” Ricky said. “You know you could have killed her. You could have killed your own wife.”
“How about that,” I said.
I was still fumbling in my pocket, as if the test tubes were stuck in the cloth. They didn’t know what I was doing, so they grabbed me again, Vince on one side and Ricky on the other.
“Guys,” I said, “I can’t do this if you-”
“Let him go,” Julia said, coming out of the room.
“Like hell,” Vince said. “He’ll pull something.”
I was still struggling, trying to bring the tubes out. Finally I had them in my hand. While we struggled, I threw one onto the ground. It smashed on the concrete floor, and brown sludge spattered up.
“Jesus!” They all jumped away, releasing me. They stared at the floor, and bent over to look at their feet, making sure none of it had touched them.
And in that moment, I ran.
…
I grabbed the jug from its hiding place, and kept going across the fabrication room. I had to get all the way across the room to the elevator, and ride it up to the ceiling level, where all the basic system equipment was located. Up there, where the air handlers were, and the electrical junction boxes-and the tank for the sprinkler system. If I could reach the elevator and ride it just seven or eight feet in the air, then they couldn’t touch me. If I could do that, then my plan would work.
The elevator was a hundred and fifty feet away.
I ran hard, vaulting over the lowest arms of the octopus, ducking beneath the chest-high sections. I glanced back and couldn’t see them through the maze of arms and machinery. But I heard the three of them shouting, and I heard running feet. I heard Julia say, “He’s going for the sprinklers!” Ahead, I saw the yellow open cage of the elevator. I was going to make it, after all.
At that moment, I stumbled over one of the arms and went sprawling. The jug skidded across the floor, came to rest against a support beam. I scrambled quickly to my feet again, and retrieved the jug. I knew they were right behind me. I didn’t dare look back now. I ran for the elevator, ducking beneath one final pipe, but when I looked again, Vince was already there. He must have known a shortcut through the octopus arms; somehow he had beaten me. Now he stood in the open cage, grinning. I looked back and saw Ricky just a few yards behind me, closing fast.
Julia called, “Give it up, Jack! It’s no good.”
She was right about that, it was no good at all. I couldn’t get past Vince. And I couldn’t outrun Ricky now, he was much too close. I jumped over a pipe, stepped around a standing electrical box, and ducked down. As Ricky jumped the pipe, I slammed my elbow upward between his legs. He howled and went down, rolling on the floor in agony. I stopped and kicked him in the head as hard as I could. That was for Charley.
I ran.
At the elevator, Vince stood in a half-crouch, fists bunched. He was relishing a fight. I ran straight toward him and he grinned broadly in anticipation.
And at the last moment, I swerved left. I jumped.
And started climbing the ladder on the wall.
Julia screamed, “Stop him! Stop him!”
It was difficult climbing, because I had my thumb hooked through the jug; the bottle kept banging painfully against the back of my right hand as I went up. I focused on the pain. I panic at heights and I didn’t want to look down. And so I couldn’t see what was dragging at my legs, pulling me back toward the floor. I kicked, but whatever it was held on to me. Finally, I turned to look. I was ten feet above the ground, and two rungs beneath me, Ricky had his free arm locked around my legs, his hand clutching my ankle. He jerked at my feet, and yanked them off the rung. I slid for an instant and then felt a burst of searing pain in my hands. But I held on.
Ricky was smiling grimly. I kicked my legs backward, trying to hit his face, but to no avail, he had both legs locked tight against his chest. He was immensely strong. I kept trying until I realized that I could pull one leg up and free. I did, and stomped down on his hand that was holding on to the rung. He yelled, and released my legs to hold on to the ladder with his other hand. I stomped again-and kicked straight back, catching him right under the chin. He slid down five rungs, then caught himself. He hung there, near the bottom of the ladder. I climbed again.
Julia was running across the floor. “Stop him!”
I heard the elevator grind as Vince rode up past me, heading toward the top. He would wait for me there.
I climbed.
I was fifteen feet above the floor, then twenty. I looked down to see Ricky pursuing me but he was far behind, I didn’t think he could catch me, and then Julia came swirling up through the air toward me, spiraling like a corkscrew-and grabbed the ladder right alongside me. Except she wasn’t Julia, she was the swarm, and for a moment the swarm was disorganized enough that I could see right through her in places; I could see the swirling particles that composed her. I looked down and saw the real Julia, deathly pale, standing and looking up at me, her face a skull. By now the swarm alongside me became solid-appearing, as I had seen it become solid before. It looked like Julia. The mouth moved and I heard a strange voice say “Sorry, Jack.” And the swarm shrank, becoming denser still, collapsing into a small Julia, about four feet tall.