The Twelve

by Justin Cronin

“Then you might want to pray that I’m wrong.”

  27

  Peter was in the medical bay for ten days. Three cracked ribs, a dislocated shoulder, burns on his legs and feet, his hands scraped raw like slabs of meat; bruises and gashes and cuts all over, too many to count. He’d been knocked cold but had apparently failed, despite his best efforts, to crack his skull. Every movement hurt, even breathing.

  “From what I hear, you’re goddamn lucky to be alive,” the doctor said—a man of about sixty with a bulbous nose veined from years on the lick and a voice so coarse it sounded dragged. His bedside manner involved using the same tone, more or less, that a person might take with a hopelessly disobedient dog. “Stay on your back, Lieutenant. You’re mine until I say otherwise.”

  Henneman had debriefed Peter the day the team had returned to the garrison. He was still a little out of it, doped up on painkillers; the major’s questions glided over his brain with the disassociated contours of a conversation occurring in another room among people he only vaguely knew. A man, a very old man, with a tattoo of a snake on his neck. Yes, Peter confirmed, nodding his head heavily against the pillow, that was what they saw. Did he tell them who he was? Ignacio, Peter replied. He told us his name was Ignacio. The major obviously had no idea what to make of these answers; neither did Peter. Henneman seemed to be asking the same questions again and again, in only slightly altered forms; at some point, Peter drifted off. When he opened his eyes again—as he would soon discover, a day and a night having passed—he was alone.

  He saw no one else except the doctor until the afternoon of the fourth day, when Alicia appeared at his bedside. By this time Peter was sitting up, his left arm dressed in a sling to hold his shoulder in place. That afternoon he’d taken his first walk to the latrine, a milestone, though the voyage of just a few shuffling steps had left him enervated, and now he was faced with the problem of trying to feed himself with hands encased in mittenlike bandages.

  “Flyers, you look like hell, Lieutenant.”

  The light in the tent was dim enough that she’d removed her glasses. The orange color of her eyes was something Peter was accustomed to, though she rarely let others see them. She slid into a chair at his bedside and gestured toward the bowl of cornmeal mush that Peter, without much success, was attempting to spoon in his mouth.

  “Want a little help with that?”

  “Don’t you wish.”

  She flashed a smile. “Well, it’s good to see you’ve still got your pride. Henneman grill you?”

  “I barely remember it. I don’t think he liked the answers very much.” The spoon slipped from his grip, dragging a glob of the gluey paste onto his shirt. “Shit.”

  “Here, let me.”

  He was now endeavoring to clamp the spoon between his thumb and the edge of the bowl to wedge it into his palm. “I told you, I’ve got this.”

  “Will you? Just stop.”

  Peter sighed and let the spoon drop to the tray. Alicia dipped it into the bowl and aimed for his mouth. “Open up for mama.”

  “You know, you never struck me as the maternal type.”

  “In your case, I’m willing to make an exception. Just eat.”

  Bite by bite, the bowl was emptied. Alicia took a rag and wiped his chin.

  “I can do that myself, you know.”

  “Nuh-uh. Comes with the service.” She leaned back. “There, good as new.” She put the rag aside. “We had the service for Satch this morning. It was nice. Henneman and Apgar both spoke.”

  Though Satch was presumed killed in the explosion, Henneman had led a squad back up the mountain to look for him. The gesture was symbolic; still, it had to be made. In any case, they’d found nothing. What had happened at the base of the cave would never be known.

  “So that’s that, I guess.”

  “Satch was a good guy. Everybody liked him.”

  “We always say that.”

  Alicia shrugged. “Doesn’t make it any less true.”

  Peter knew they were thinking the same thing: the plan had been theirs, and now Satch was dead.

  “Seeing as you’re fed, I should be heading off. Apgar’s sending me south to recon some of those oil fields.”

  “Lish, how did you know something was down there?”

  The question seemed to catch her short. “I don’t really have an answer, Peter. It was just … a feeling.”

  “A feeling.”

  She was staring past him. “I don’t really know how to put it into words.”

  “I thought only Amy could do that.”

  Alicia shrugged, pushing the subject aside: Don’t press. “I guess I owe you for going out on a limb for me like that. Nice to have a little company in the doghouse at least.”

  “This whole thing has had it, hasn’t it?” he said glumly.

  “Apgar’s going to do what he’s going to do. I’m not a mind reader.”

  “Do you think he believes us?”

  Alicia said nothing. Her eyes had gone away again. Then, with a quizzical expression:

  “Peter, do you remember that movie Dracula?”

  The memory called him back five years. Peter had been watching it with Vorhees’s men in the Colorado garrison on the night Alicia had returned from the mission that had found the nest of virals in an old copper mine.

  “I didn’t know you saw it.”

  “Saw it? Hell, I studied it. The thing is like a viral owner’s manual. Never mind the cape and castle and all that nonsense. It’s the rest that fits. A human being whose life has been ‘unnaturally prolonged.’ Using the stake in the heart to kill him. The way he has to sleep in his native soil. The whole business with the mirrors—”

  “Like the pan in Las Vegas,” Peter cut in. “I thought the same thing.”

  “It’s as if their reflection, I don’t know, screws them up somehow. The whole movie is like that.”

  “Lish, where are you going with this?”

  She hesitated. “Something always nagged at me, a piece I couldn’t place. Dracula has a sort of adjutant. Somebody who still looks human.”

  Peter remembered. “The crazy one who eats the spiders.”

  “That’s the guy. Renfield. Dracula infects him, but he doesn’t flip, at least not completely. He’s more like somebody caught in the early stages of infection. It got me wondering, what if they all have somebody like that?” She was looking at him keenly now. “Do you remember what Olson said about Jude?”

  Olson was the leader of the community they’d found in Nevada, the Haven—a whole town of people who would sacrifice their own to Babcock, First of Twelve. Olson had been nominally in charge, but the fact had emerged that it was Jude who really ran the place. He had some kind of special relationship to Babcock, though its nature had gone unexplained.

  “ ‘He was … familiar,’ ” Peter quoted. “I never understood what Olson meant. It didn’t really make sense. And you were pointing a gun at his head.”

  “So I was. And believe me, there are days when I wish I’d gone ahead and pulled the trigger. But I don’t think it was gibberish. I looked up the word at the library back in Kerrville. The dictionary said the definition was archaic, so I had to look that up too, which basically just means old. It said that a familiar is a kind of helper demon, like a witch’s cat. A sort of assistant. Maybe that’s what Olson was talking about.”

  Peter allowed himself several seconds to process this. “So what you’re saying is that Ignacio was Martínez’s … familiar.”

  Alicia shrugged. “Okay, it’s a stretch. I’m sort of cobbling things together here. But the other thing to consider is the signal. Ignacio had a chip in him, just like Amy and the Twelve. That means he’s connected to Project NOAH.”

  “Did you tell Apgar any of this?”

  “Are you serious? I’m in enough trouble as it is.”

  Peter didn’t doubt that. Nor did he doubt that whatever blame she had incurred for the botched raid on the cave was his as well.

  Alicia ros
e to go. “Either way, we should know more about where we stand by the time I get back from Odessa. No point in worrying for now. I know you think you’re indispensible, but we can get along without you for a few days.”

  “You’re not making me feel any better.”

  She smiled. “Just don’t expect me to come back to feed you again, Lieutenant. You only get that once.”

  As she moved toward the door, Peter said, “Lish, hold up a second.”

  She spun to look at him.

  “What Ignacio said. ‘He left us.’ What do you think it means?”

  “I don’t have an answer for that. All I know is he should have been there.”

  “Where do you think he went?”

  She didn’t answer right away. A shadow moved over her face, a darkening from within. It wasn’t anything Peter had seen before. Even in the most perilous circumstances, her composure was total. She was a woman of absolute focus, always giving her attention to the task at hand. This was similar, but the energy wasn’t the same. It seemed to come from a deeper place.

  “I wish I knew,” she said, and slipped her glasses on. “Believe me.”

  Then she was gone, the flaps of the tent shifting with her departure. Peter felt her absence immediately, as he always did. It was true: they were always leaving each other.

  Peter did not see her again. Six days later, he was released. His ribs would need longer to heal, and he would have to take it easy for a couple of weeks, but at least he was out of bed. Making his way across the garrison to report for duty, a surge lifted his steps. The sensation reminded him of a time many years ago when, just a boy, he’d been sick with a high fever, and after the fever had broken how just being up and about made even ordinary things seem charged with a fresh vitality.

  Yet something else was different; Peter could feel it. Everything appeared normal—the soldiers on the catwalks, the roar of generators, the ordered movements of military activity all around—yet he sensed a shift, a discernible lessening of intensity.

  He entered the command tent to find Apgar standing behind his desk of battered metal, scowling at a stack of papers.

  “Jaxon. I didn’t expect to see you for a couple more days. How are you feeling?”

  The question struck Peter as uncharacteristically personal. “Fine, sir. Thank you for asking.”

  “Take a seat, won’t you?”

  For a while Apgar continued to shift his papers. Though not a large man—Peter stood at least two hands taller—the colonel exuded a strong, physical presence, his movements precise, nothing wasted. After a period of time that might have been two full minutes, he appeared to achieve a satisfactory ordering to the documents and lowered himself into his chair to face Peter across the desk.

  “I have new orders for you. They came this morning in the pouch from Kerrville. Before you say anything, I want you to know this has nothing to do with what happened in Carlsbad. I’ve been expecting this for some time, actually.”

  The last of Peter’s hopes sank beneath the waves. Going, going, gone. “We’re abandoning the hunt, aren’t we?”

  “ ‘Abandoning’ would be too strong a word. Putting under review. There’s a feeling at Command that some of our resources have to shift. For the time being, you’re being transferred to the Oil Road.”

  It was worse than Peter had expected. “That’s a job for Domestic Security.”

  “Generally, yes. But this isn’t without precedent, and it comes from the president’s office. Apparently she’s of the opinion that security for oil shipments has been too lax, and she wants the Army to take a role. A transport leaves at the end of the week for Kerrville, and I want you on it. From there you’ll report to the DS in Freeport.”

  Despite what Apgar said, Peter knew the decision had everything to do with Carlsbad. He was being demoted—if not in rank, then in responsibility.

  “You can’t do that, sir.”

  A lift of his eyebrows, no more. “Perhaps I misheard you, Lieutenant. I could swear you just told me what I could and could not do.”

  Peter felt his face grow warm. “Sorry, Colonel. That’s not what I meant.”

  Apgar studied Peter a moment. “Look, I get it, Jaxon. Tell me something. How long have you been out here?”

  Of course the colonel knew the answer; he was asking only to make a point. “Sixteen months.”

  “A long time in the sticks. You should have been rotated out a while ago. The only reason you haven’t is that you always put in a request to stay. I’ve let it go because I know what the hunt means to you. In a way, you’re the reason all of us are here.”

  “There’s no place else I want to be, sir.”

  “And you’ve made that abundantly clear. But you’re only human, Lieutenant. Frankly, you need the break. I’m headed back to Kerrville after we button things up, and as soon as I can, I’ll put in a request at Division to move you back out to the territories. I’m not in the habit of making deals, so I suggest you take this one.”

  There was nothing to do but agree. “If I may ask, Colonel, what about Lieutenant Donadio?”

  “She’s got new orders, too. This isn’t just you. As soon as she returns from the slicks, she’s going north to Kearney.”

  Fort Kearney was the northernmost outpost of the Expeditionary. With a supply line stretching all the way from Amarillo, it was typically shut down before the first snowfall.

  “Why there? Winter’s only a couple of months away.”

  “Command doesn’t tell me everything, but from what I hear it’s gotten pretty thick up there. Given her talents, I’m guessing they want a new S2 to help clear out the hostiles before they evac.”

  The explanation felt thin, but Peter knew better than to press.

  “I’m sorry about Satch,” Apgar continued. “He was a good officer. I know you were friends.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Dismissed, Lieutenant.”

  Peter spent the rest of the week in a state of suspension. With nothing else to occupy his time, he mostly stayed in his quarters. The map on the inside lid of the locker, once a badge of purpose, now felt like a bad joke. Maybe there was something to Alicia’s theory, and maybe there wasn’t. It seemed likely they would never find out. He thought of the time before he’d joined the Expeditionary, wondering if he’d made a mistake by enlisting. Back then, the fight had been his alone. Now it belonged to a larger enterprise, one with rules and protocols and chains of command in which he had little, if any, say. He had surrendered his freedom to become just another junior officer about whom people would someday remark, “He was a good guy.”

  The morning of his departure arrived. Peter carted his locker to the staging area where the transport awaited, a semitrailer loaded with the tires Peter’s men had brought down from Lubbock. He hoisted his baggage into the cargo compartment of the escort vehicle and climbed into the passenger seat.

  “Good to be going home, sir?”

  Peter merely nodded. Anything he might have said would have sounded peevish, and the driver, a corporal from Satch’s squad, didn’t deserve to bear the brunt of his bad mood.

  “I’ll tell you the first thing I do after I collect my scrip,” the corporal said, his exuberance barely contained. “I’m going straight to H-town to spend half of it on lick and the other half in a whorehouse.” Suddenly embarrassed, he glanced at Peter with a flustered look. “Um, sorry, sir.”

  “That’s all right, Corporal.”

  “Anybody at home for you, Lieutenant? If you don’t mind my asking.”

  The answer was too complicated to even begin. “In a way.”

  The corporal gave a knowing smile. “Well, whoever she is, I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you.”

  The order was given; with a belch of diesel fumes, the convoy began to pull away. Peter was already settling into the trancelike state he hoped to maintain for the next three days when he heard someone yelling over the racket of engines.

  “Hold at the gate!”

/>   Alicia was jogging toward the Humvee. Peter drew down the window.

  “I just got back an hour ago,” she said. “Who do you think you are, leaving without saying goodbye?”

  Her face was a mask of oily grime; she smelled faintly of petroleum. But the thing that caught his eye was a glint of metal on her collar: a pair of captain’s bars.

  “Well, look at that,” he said, managing a wry grin that he hoped masked his envy. “I guess I’ll have to start calling you ‘sir.’ ”

  “I like the ring of that. About time, if you ask me.”

  “Apgar’s cycling me out.”

  “I know. The Oil Road.” There was no reason to elaborate. “It’s easy duty, Peter. You’ve earned it.”

  “That’s what they tell me.”

  “Say hi to the Circuit for me. And Greer, if you see him.”

  Peter nodded. There was only so much that could be said with the driver present. “When do you leave for Kearney?”

  “Two days.”

  “All eyes up there. Apgar says it’s gotten pretty thick.”

  “You, too.” She glanced at the driver, who was studying the wheel with his eyes, then back at Peter. “Don’t worry. What we were talking about before. It’s not over, okay?”

  He felt, inside her words, the pressure of something unstated. From behind them rose an impatient roar of engines. Everyone was waiting.

  “Sir, we really have to be going,” the driver said.

  “That’s okay, we’re done here.” Alicia regarded Peter one last time. “I mean it, Peter. It’ll be all right. Just go see your boy.”

  28

  The first pain arrived, like a late train roaring into the station, on an afternoon in late September of warm Texas sunshine and a high blue sky. Amy was in the courtyard, watching the children play; in another few minutes the bell would sound, summoning them inside to finish their lessons, and Amy would return to the kitchen to help make dinner. An island of rest in the midst of the day’s never-ending rhythm of tasks done and, just as swiftly, undone; always, when lunch was concluded and the dishes put away and the children set loose to burn off the morning’s accumulated antsiness, Amy followed them outside and took up a position at the edge of the playground that was near enough for her to enjoy the bright energy of their activity while not so close as to allow the children to draw her in. These were her favorite thirty minutes of the day, and Amy had just closed her eyes and tilted her face to receive the warm rays of the early autumn sun when the pain hit: a powerful clenching in her midriff that caused her to bend sharply at the waist, stagger forward, and exhale a soft cry of shock that even in the busy hubbub of the courtyard could not fail to go unnoticed.