The Strain

by Guillermo Del Toro

  “I need Zack, you know that. Z is…he’s it. I think, without him, there would be no me. Unhealthy or not, that’s just the way it is. He’s everything to me…as you once were.” She paused to let that sink in, for both of them. “Without him, I would be lost, I would be…”

  She gave up on her rambling.

  Eph said, “You would be like me.”

  That froze her. They stood there looking at each other.

  “Look,” Eph said, “I’ll take some blame. For us, for you and me. I know I’m not the…the whatever, the easiest guy in the world, the ideal husband. I went through my thing. And Matt—I know I’ve said some things in the past…”

  “You once called him my ‘consolation life.’”

  Eph winced. “You know what? Maybe if I managed a Sears, if I had a job that was just that, a job, and not another marriage entirely…maybe you wouldn’t have felt so left out. So cheated. So…second place.”

  They were quiet for a bit then, Eph realizing how bigger issues tended to crowd out the little ones. How true strife caused personal problems to be set aside with alacrity.

  Kelly said, “I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say we should have had this talk years ago.”

  “We should have,” he agreed. “But we couldn’t. It wouldn’t have worked. We had to go through all this shit first. Believe me, I’d have paid any amount not to—not to have gone through one second of it—but here we are. Like old acquaintances.”

  “Life doesn’t go at all the way you think it will.”

  Eph nodded. “After what my parents went through, what they put me through, I always told myself, never, never, never, never.”

  “I know.”

  He folded in the spout on the milk carton. “So forget who did what. What we need to do now is make it up to him.”

  “We do.”

  Kelly nodded. Eph nodded. He swirled the milk around in the carton, feeling the coldness brush up against his palm.

  “Christ, what a day,” he said. He thought again about the little girl in Freeburg, the one who had been holding hands with her mother on Flight 753. The one who was Zack’s age. “You know how you always told me, if something hit, some biological threat, that if I didn’t let you know first you’d divorce me? Well—too late for that.”

  She came forward, reading his face. “I know you’re in trouble.”

  “This isn’t about me. I just want you to listen, okay, and not flip out. There is a virus moving through the city. It’s something…extraordinary…easily the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “The worst?” She blanched. “Is it SARS?”

  Eph almost smiled at the grand absurdity of it all. The insanity.

  “What I want you to do is to take Zack and get out of the city. Matt too. As soon as possible—tonight, right now—and as far away as you can possibly go. Away from populated areas, I mean. Your parents…I know how you feel about taking things from them, but they have that place up in Vermont still, right? On top of that hill?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Go there. For a few days at least. Watch the news, wait for my call.”

  “Wait,” she said. “I’m the head-for-the-hills paranoiac, not you. But…what about my classroom? Zack’s school?” She squinted. “Why won’t you tell me what it is?”

  “Because then you would not go. Just trust me, and go,” he said. “Go, and hope we can turn it back somehow, and this all passes quickly.”

  “‘Hope?’” she said. “Now you’re really scaring me. What if you can’t turn it back? And—and what if something happens to you?”

  He couldn’t stand there with her and address his own doubts. “Kelly—I gotta go.”

  He tried to walk out, but she grabbed his arm, checking his eyes to see if it was okay, then put her arms around him. What started as just a make-up hug turned into something more, and by the end of it she was gripping him tightly. “I’m sorry,” she whispered into his ear, then left a kiss on the bristly side of his unshaven neck.

  Vestry Street, Tribeca

  ELDRITCH PALMER sat waiting on an uncushioned chair on the rooftop patio, bathed in night. The only direct light was that of an outdoor gas lamp burning in the corner. The terrace was on the top of the lower of the two adjoining buildings. The floor was made of square clay tiles, aged and blanched by the elements. One low step preceded a high brick wall at the northern end, with two door-size archways hung with iron-work. Fluted terra-cotta tiling topped the wall and the overhangs on each side. To the left, through wider decorative archways, were oversize doorways to the residence. Behind Palmer, centered before the southern white cement wall, was a headless statue of a woman in swirling robes, her shoulders and arms darkly weathered. Ivy slithered up the stone base. Though a few taller buildings were visible both north and east, the patio was reasonably private, as concealed a rooftop as one might hope to find in lower Manhattan.

  Palmer sat listening to the sounds of the city rising off the streets. Sounds that would end so soon. If only they knew this down there, they would embrace this night. Every mundanity of life grows infinitely more precious in the face of impending death. Palmer knew this intimately. A sickly child, he had struggled with his health all his life. Some mornings he had awakened amazed to see another dawn. Most people didn’t know what it was to mark existence one sunrise at a time. What it was like to depend on machines for one’s survival. Good health was the birthright of most, and life a series of days to be tripped through. They had never known the nearness of death. The intimacy of ultimate darkness.

  Soon Eldritch Palmer would know their bliss. An endless menu of days stretched out before him. Soon he would know what it was not to worry about tomorrow, or tomorrow’s tomorrow…

  A breeze fluttered the patio trees and rustled through some of the plantings. Palmer, seated facing the taller residence, at an angle, next to a small smoking table, heard a rustling. A rippling, like the hem of a garment on the floor. A black garment.

  I thought you wanted no contact until after the first week.

  The voice—at once both familiar and monstrous—sent a dark thrill racing up Palmer’s crooked back. If Palmer hadn’t purposely been facing away from the main part of the patio—both out of respect as well as sheer human aversion—he would have seen that the Master’s mouth never moved. No voice went out into the night. The Master spoke directly into your mind.

  Palmer felt the presence high above his shoulder, and kept his gaze trained on the arched doors to the residence. “Welcome to New York.”

  This came out as more of a gasp than he would have liked. Nothing can unman you like an un-man.

  When the Master said nothing, Palmer tried to reassert himself. “I have to say, I disapprove of this Bolivar. I don’t know why you should have selected him.”

  Who he is matters not to me.

  Palmer saw instantly that he was right. So what if Bolivar had been a makeup-wearing rock star? Palmer was thinking like a human, he supposed. “Why did you leave four conscious? It has created many problems.”

  Do you question me?

  Palmer swallowed. A kingmaker in this life, subordinate to no man. The feeling of abject servility was as foreign to him as it was overwhelming.

  “Someone is on to you,” Palmer said quickly. “A medical scientist, a disease detective. Here in New York.”

  What does one man matter to me?

  “He—his name is Dr. Ephraim Goodweather—is an expert in epidemic control.”

  You glorified little monkeys. Your kind is the epidemic—not mine.

  “This Goodweather is being advised by someone. A man with detailed knowledge of your kind. He knows the lore and even a bit of the biology. The police are looking for him, but I think that more decisive action is warranted. I believe that this could mean the difference between a quick, decisive victory or a protracted struggle. We have many battles to come, on the human front as well as others—”

  I will prevail.
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br />   As to that, Palmer harbored no doubts. “Yes, of course.” Palmer wanted the old man for himself. He wanted to confirm his identity before divulging any information to the Master. So he was actively trying not to think about the old man—knowing that, in the presence of the Master, one must protect one’s thoughts…

  I have met this old man before. When he was not quite so old.

  Palmer went cold with astonished defeat. “You will remember, it took me a long time to find you. My travels took me to the four corners of the world, and there were many dead ends and side roads—many people I had to go through. He was one of them.” He tried to make his change in topic fluid, but his mind felt clouded. Being in the presence of the Master was like being oil in the presence of a burning wick.

  I will meet this Goodweather. And tend to him.

  Palmer had already prepared a bulleted sheet containing background information on the CDC epidemiologist. He unfolded the sheet from his jacket pocket, laying it flat on the table. “Everything is there, Master. His family, known associates…”

  There was a scrape along the tile top of the table, and the piece of paper was taken. Palmer glimpsed the hand only peripherally. The middle finger, crooked and sharp-nailed, was longer and thicker than the others.

  Palmer said, “All we need now is a few more days.”

  An argument, of sorts, had begun inside the rock star’s residence, the unfinished twin town houses that Palmer had had the unfortunate pleasure of walking through in order to get to the patio rendezvous. He showed particular distaste for the only finished part of the household, the penthouse bedroom, garishly overdecorated and reeking of primate lust. Palmer himself had never been with a woman. When he was young, it was because of illness, and the preaching of the two aunts who had raised him. When he was older, it was by choice. He came to understand that the purity of his mortal self should never be tainted by desire.

  The interior argument grew louder, into the unmistakable clatter of violence.

  Your man is in trouble.

  Palmer sat forward. Mr. Fitzwilliam was inside. Palmer had expressly forbidden him to enter the patio area. “You said his safety here was guaranteed.”

  Palmer heard the pounding of running feet. He heard grunting. A human yell.

  “Stop them,” said Palmer.

  The Master’s voice was, as ever, languid and unperturbed.

  He is not the one they want.

  Palmer rose in a panic. Did the Master mean him? Was this some sort of trap? “We have an agreement!”

  For as long as it suits me.

  Palmer heard another yell, close at hand—followed by two quick gun reports. Then one of the interior arched doors was thrown open, inward, and the ornamental gate was pushed out. Mr. Fitzwilliam, 260 pounds of ex-marine in a Savile Row suit, came racing through, his sidearm gripped in his right hand, eyes bright with distress. “Sir—they are right behind me…”

  It was then that his vision moved from Palmer’s face to the impossibly tall figure standing behind him. The gun slipped from Mr. Fitzwilliam’s grip, clunking to the tile. Mr. Fitzwilliam’s face drained of color and he swayed there for a moment like a man swaying from a wire, then dropped to his knees.

  Behind him came the turned. Vampires in various modes of civilian dress, from business suits to Goth wear to paparazzi casual. All stinking and scuffed from nesting in the dirt. They rushed onto the patio like creatures beckoned by an unheard whistle.

  Leading them was Bolivar himself, gaunt and nearly bald, wearing a black robe. As a first-generation vampire, he was more mature than the rest. His flesh had a bloodless, alabaster-like pallor that was almost glowing and his eyes were dead moons.

  Behind him was a female fan who had been shot in the face by Mr. Fitzwilliam in the midst of his panic. Her cheekbone was split open back to her lopsided ear, leaving her with one half of a garish, teeth-baring smile.

  The rest staggered out into the new night, excited into action by the presence of their Master. They stopped, staring at him in black-eyed awe.

  Children.

  Palmer—standing right before them, between them and the Master—was completely ignored. The force of the Master’s presence held them in abeyance. They gathered before him like primitives before a temple.

  Mr. Fitzwilliam remained on his knees, as though struck down.

  The Master spoke in a way that Palmer believed exclusive to his own ears.

  You brought me all this way. Aren’t you going to look?

  Palmer had beheld the Master once before, in a darkened cellar on another continent. Not clearly, and yet—clearly enough. The image had never left him.

  No way to avoid him now. Palmer closed his eyes to steel himself, then opened them and forced himself to turn. Like risking blindness by staring into the sun.

  His eyes traveled up from the Master’s chest to……his face.

  The horror. And the glory.

  The impious. And the magnificent.

  The savage. And the holy.

  Unnatural terror stretched Palmer’s face into a mask of fear, eventually turning the corners of it into a triumphant, teeth-clenching smile.

  The hideous transcendent.

  Behold the Master.

  Kelton Street, Woodside, Queens

  KELLY WALKED FAST across the living room with clean clothes and batteries in her hands, past Matt and Zack, who were watching the television news.

  “We’re going,” said Kelly, dumping the load into a canvas bag on a chair.

  Matt turned to her with a smile but Kelly wanted none of it. “Come on, babe,” he said.

  “Haven’t you been listening to me?”

  “Yes. Patiently.” He stood up from his chair. “Look, Kel, your ex-husband is doing his thing again. Lobbing a grenade into our happy home life here. Can’t you see that? If this was something really serious, the government would tell us.”

  “Oh. Yes, of course. Elected officials never lie.” She stomped off to the front closet, pulling out the rest of the luggage. Kelly kept a go bag also, as recommended by the New York City Office of Emergency Management, in the event of an emergency evacuation. It was a sturdy canvas bag packed with bottled water and granola bars, a Grundig hand-crank AM/FM/shortwave radio, a Faraday flashlight, a first-aid kit, $100 in cash, and copies of all their important documents in a waterproof container.

  “This is a self-fulfilling prophesy with you,” continued Matt, following her. “Don’t you see? He knows you. He knows exactly which button to push. This is why you two were no good for each other.”

  Kelly dug to the back of the closet, tossing out two old tennis rackets in her way, hitting Matt on the feet for talking like that in front of Zack. “It’s not like that. I believe him.”

  “He’s a wanted man, Kel. He’s having some sort of breakdown, a collapse. All these so-called geniuses are basically fragile. Like those sunflowers you’re always trying to grow out along the back fence—heads too big, collapsing underneath their own weight.” Kelly sent a winter boot out, flying near his shins, but this one he dodged. “This is all about you, you know. He’s pathological. Can’t let go. This whole thing is about keeping you close.”

  She stopped, turning on all fours, staring at him through the bottom of the coats. “Are you really that clueless?”

  “Men don’t like to lose. They won’t give in.”

  She backed out hauling her big American Tourister. “Is that why you won’t leave now?”

  “I won’t leave because I have to go to work. If I thought I could use your daffy husband’s end-of-the-world excuse to get out of this floor-to-computer inventory, I would, believe me. But in the real world, when you don’t show up at your job, you lose it.”

  She turned, burning at his obstinacy. “Eph said to go. He’s never acted that way before, never talked like that. This is real.”

  “It’s eclipse hysteria, they were talking about it on TV. People freaking out. If I was going to flee New York because of all the cra
zies, I’d have been out of here years ago.” Matt reached for her shoulders. She shook him off at first, then let him hold her for a moment. “I’ll check in with the electronics department now and then, the TVs there, to see if anything’s happening. But the world keeps turning, all right? For those of us with real jobs. I mean—you’re just going to leave your classroom?”

  Her students’ needs pulled on her, but everybody and everything else came second to Zack. “Maybe they’ll cancel school for a few days. Come to think of it, I had a lot of unexplained absences today—”

  “These are kids, Kel. Flu.”

  “I think it’s actually the eclipse,” said Zack, from across the room. “Fred Falin told me in school. Everyone who looked at the moon without glasses? It cooked their brains.”

  Kelly said, “What is this fascination with you and zombies?”

  “They’re out there,” he said. “Gotta be prepared. I’ll bet you don’t even know the two most important things you need in order to survive a zombie invasion.”

  Kelly ignored him. Matt said, “I give up.”

  “A machete and a helicopter.”

  “Machete, huh?” Matt shook his head. “I think I’d rather have a shotgun.”

  “Wrong,” said Zack. “You don’t have to reload a machete.”

  Matt conceded the point, turning to Kelly. “This Fred Falin kid really knows his stuff.”

  “Guys—I’ve HAD it!” Being ganged up on by them wasn’t something she was used to. Any other time, she might have been happy seeing Zack and Matt pulling together. “Zack—you’re talking nonsense. This is a virus, and it’s real. We need to get out of here.”

  Matt stood there while Kelly carried the empty suitcase to the other bags. “Kel, relax. Okay?” He pulled his car keys out of his pocket, twirling them around his finger. “Take a bath, catch your breath. Be rational about this—please. Taking into account the source of your ‘inside’ info.” He went to the front door. “I’ll check in with you later.”

  He went out. Kelly stood staring at the closed door.

  Zack came over to her with his head cocked slightly to one side, the way he used to when he’d ask what death meant or why some men held hands. “What did Dad say to you about this?”