pressed to her temples.
Lizzie … she’s still … oh, she’s thrashing … her face … her
face all swollen ..
.
twisted … the whole bone structure … not even Lizzie anymore …
There’s no hope now. This was that damn place, the other side, coming
through, like Lizzie was a doorway. Coming through. Oh, Jesus, I hate
myself I hate myself, I was part of it, I opened the door, opened the
door between here and that place, helped make it possible. I opened the
door.
And now here is Lizzie … so I have to … so I … I shot.
.. shot her.
.. shot her twice. And she’s dead, and so still on the bed, so small and
still … but I don’t know if something is alive in her, alive in her
though she isn’t anymore. And Maureen, she has … she has both hands to
her head … and she says, The fluttering, and I know she means it’s
inside her head now, because I feel it, too, a fluttering along my spine
… fluttering in sympathy with … with whatever was in Lizzie, is in
Lizzie. And Maureen says … the most amazing … she says the most
amazing thing … she says, I love you, because she knows what’s
happening, I’ve told her about the other side, the mission, and now she
knows somehow I’ve been infected all along, everything dormant for more
than two years, but I’m infected, and now them, too, I’ve ruined us all,
damned us all, and she knows. She knows what I ..
. what I’ve done to them … and now what I have to do ..
. so she says, I love you, which is giving me permission, and I tell her
I love her, too, so much, love her so much, and I’m sorry, and she’s
crying, and then I shoot her once … once, quiet my sweet Maureen,
don’t let her suffer. Then I … oh, I go … I go back down the hall
… I go to Freddie’s room. He’s on his back in bed, sweating, hair
soaked with sweat, and holding his belly with both hands. I know he
feels the fluttering … fiuttering in his tummy .
.. because I feel it now in my chest and in my left biceps, like in a
vein, and of all places in my testicles, and now along my spine again.
I tell him I love him, and I tell him to close his eyes … close his
… close his eyes … so I can make him feel better … and then I
don’t think I can do it, but I do it. My son. My boy. Brave boy. I make
him feel better, and when I fire the shot, all the fluttering in me
stops, just stops completely.
But I know it’s not over. I’m not alone … not alone in my body.
I feel … passengers … something … a heaviness in me .
.
. a presence. Quiet. It’s quiet but not for long Not for long I’ve
reloaded the revolver.” Delacroix switched off the recorder, pausing to
get a grip on his emotions.
With the remote control, I stopped the tape. The late Leland Delacroix
wasn’t the only one who needed to compose himself.
Without comment, Bobby got up from the cellist’s stool and went into the
kitchen.
After a moment, I followed him.
Q I He was emptying his unfinished bottle of Mountain Dew into the sink,
flushing it away with cold water.
“Don’t turn it off, ” I said.
While Bobby threw the empty soda bottle in the trash can and opened the
refrigerator, I went to the sink. I cupped my hands under the faucet,
and for at least a minute, I splashed cold water on my face.
After I dried my face on a couple of paper towels, Bobby handed a bottle
of beer to me. He had one, too.
I wanted to have a clear head when we returned to Wyvern. But after what
I’d heard on the tape, and considering what else remained to be heard, I
could probably have downed a six-pack without effect.