The Twelve tpt-2

by Justin Cronin

  Did the dopey know what was about to happen? Did it experience, in that sliver of time in which the outcome was ordained, an awareness of its race toward death? Was it happy? Was it sad? And then the tip of the pike found its mark, spearing the creature so thoroughly that life breathed out of it in a single, grand, instantaneous exhalation of death.

  Dunk shoved the body to the side. Peter had joined the crowd on its feet. His energy was a part of theirs; it flowed in the collective current. His voice rang with the multitude:

  Dunk, Dunk, Dunk, Dunk!

  Dunk, Dunk, Dunk, Dunk!

  Why was this different? Peter wondered, while another part of his brain refused to care, adrift in his unanticipated elation. He had faced the virals on the rampart, in cities and deserts, forests and fields. He had dropped seven hundred feet into a crawling cave. He had given himself to death’s likelihood hundreds of times, and yet Dunk’s courage was something more, something purer, something redeeming. Peter glanced at his friends. Michael, Hollis, Lore: there was no mistaking it. They felt just as he did.

  Only Tifty looked different. He’d gotten on his feet like the rest of them, but his face was emotionless. What was he seeing in his mind’s eye? Where had he gone? He had gone to the field. Not even the cage could lighten this burden. Here was Peter’s opening. He waited for the cheering to die. In the stands, bets were being counted and paid.

  “Let me go in there.”

  Tifty studied him with one raised eyebrow. “Lieutenant, what are you asking?”

  “A wager. My life against your promise to take me to Iowa. Not just tell me where this city is. You have to go with me.”

  “Peter, this is not a good idea,” Hollis warned. “I know what you’re feeling. We call it cage fever.”

  “That’s not what this is.”

  Tifty folded his arms over his chest. “Mr. Jaxon, how dumb do I look? Your reputation precedes you. I don’t doubt a dopey is well within your abilities.”

  “Not a dopey,” he said. “Sheila.”

  Tifty weighed him with his eyes. Behind him, Michael and Lore said nothing. Maybe they understood what he was doing, and maybe they didn’t. Maybe they were too dumbstruck by his apparent loss of his faculties to formulate a response. It didn’t matter either way.

  “All right, Lieutenant, it’s your funeral. Not that there’ll be anything to bury.”

  Peter was escorted to a small room at the rear of the arena by Tifty and two of his men. Michael and Hollis were with him; Lore waited in the stands. The room was bare except for a long table displaying armored pads and an array of weapons. Peter suited up. He had initially been concerned that the pads would slow him down too much, but they were surprisingly light and pliable. The mask was a different matter; Peter couldn’t see how it would be any help, and it cut down his peripheral vision. He put it aside.

  Now for armaments. He was permitted two. No firearms were allowed, only piercing weapons. Blades, crossbows, pikes and swords and axes of various lengths and weights. The cross was tempting, but in such close quarters it would take too long to reload. Peter chose a five-foot pike with a barbed steel tip.

  As for the second: he cast his eyes around for something that would serve his purpose. In the corner of the room was a galvanized trash can. He removed the lid and examined it.

  “Somebody give me a rag.”

  A rag was produced. Peter wet it with spit and rubbed the inside of the lid. His reflection began to emerge—not with any distinctiveness, barely more than a blurry shape; but it would have to suffice.

  “This is what I want.”

  Tifty’s men burst into laughter. A trash can lid! Some pathetic little shield against a full-blown drac! Did he intend to commit suicide?

  “Your foolishness is one thing, Lieutenant,” said Tifty. “But this. I can’t allow it.”

  Michael looked at him with a quizzical frown. “Like… Las Vegas?”

  Peter gave him the barest nod, turned to Tifty again. “You said anything in the room.”

  “That I did.”

  “Then I’m ready.”

  He was led into the arena. The crowd erupted in roars and stamping, but the sound was different than it had been with Dunk. Their allegiances had reversed. Peter wasn’t one of them; they were excited to watch him die, this arrogant soldier of the Expeditionary who dared to think he could take on a drac. The box was already in position at the center of the ring. As Peter approached, he thought he could see it shaking. He heard, from the bleachers, “All bets now closing!”

  “Not too late to back out,” Hollis said. “We could make a run for it.”

  “What kind of odds are they giving me?”

  “Ten to one you survive thirty seconds. A hundred to one you make it a minute.”

  “You get one down?”

  “Took you to win in forty-five. I’ll be set for life.”

  “The usual arrangement, okay?” Peter didn’t need to elaborate: If I’m bitten but survive, don’t let me. Make it fast.

  “You don’t have to worry.”

  “Michael? Hold him to that.”

  The man’s face was bereft. “Jesus, Peter. You did it once. Maybe it was something else that slowed them down. Did you think about that?”

  Peter looked at the box in the middle of the ring. It was shuddering like an engine. “Thanks—I’m thinking about it now.”

  They shook hands. A grave moment, but they had been through similar ones before. Peter stepped inside the cage; one of Tifty’s men sealed the door behind him. Hollis and Michael took their places on the bleachers with Lore. Tifty rose with his megaphone.

  “Lieutenant Jaxon of the Expeditionary, do you stand ready?”

  A chorus of boos. Peter did his best to tune them out. He had been running on pure conviction, but now that the moment was here, his body had begun to doubt his mind. His heart was racing, his palms damp. The pike felt absurdly heavy in his hand. He filled his chest with air. “Ready!”

  “Then… start the clock!”

  In the aftermath, Peter was to learn that the contest had lasted a grand total of twenty-eight seconds. This seemed both long and short; it had happened slowly and all at once, a blur of events that didn’t correspond to the ordinary course of time.

  What he would remember was this:

  The drac’s explosion from the box, like water shot from a hose; her majestic airborne leap, a force of undiluted nature, straight to the top of the cage, and then three quick ricochets as she bounded side to side, too fast for Peter’s eyes to follow; the picture in his mind’s eye of her anticipated release and the arc her body would employ as she fell upon him, and then the moment of its occurrence, exactly as he’d foreseen; the blast of force as their bodies collided, one stationary, one in headlong flight; the drac sending him careening across the cage, and his body—breathless, broken, his own for a moment or two more but no longer—rolling and rolling and rolling.

  He was on his stomach. The trash can lid and pike were gone. He rolled onto his back and scrabbled backward on his hands and feet, and then he found what was left of the pike. The pole had snapped two feet from its pointed steel end. He wrapped it with his fist and rose. He would go down swinging; he would die on his feet at least. On a distant planet, crowds were cheering. The viral was moving toward him in a manner he would have described as leisurely, almost sauntering. She cocked her head and opened her jaws to give him a good, long look at her teeth.

  Their eyes met.

  Really met. A bona fide, soul-searching gaze. The moment locked, and in that moment Peter felt his mind plunging into hers: its sensations and memories, thoughts and desires, the person she’d been and the pain of the terrible thing she’d become. Her expression had softened, her posture relaxed a discernible notch. The ferocity of her expression contained something else now: a profound melancholy. A human being was still inside her, like a tiny flame in the dark. Don’t look away, Peter told himself. Whatever you do, don’t break her gaze. The pike was in his
hand.

  He took one step, then another. Still she did not move. He felt a kind of quiet shuddering within himself, not of fear but of longing; this was what she wanted. The crowd had silenced. It was as if the two of them were alone in some immense, still space. An empty church. An abandoned theater. A cave. He drew back the pike, placing his free hand on her shoulder for balance. Please, her eyes said.

  Then it was over.

  The crowd was absolutely still. Peter realized he was shaking. Something irrevocable had happened, beyond knowing. He looked down at the body. He had felt her soul leaving her. It had brushed him like a breeze, only the breeze was inside him, made of words. Thank you, thank you. I am free.

  Tifty was waiting for him when he exited the cage.

  “Her name wasn’t Sheila,” Peter said. “It was Emily.”

  Tifty said nothing, wearing an expression of pure bewilderment.

  “She was seventeen when she was taken up. Her last memory was of kissing a boy.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Hollis, Michael, and Lore were coming down the bleachers. Peter moved toward them, stopped, then turned back to Tifty.

  “You want to know how to kill them?”

  The man nodded, slack-jawed.

  “Look them in the eye.”

  48

  Amy’s mind was full of him. Full of Carter and the woman, whose name was Rachel. Rachel Wood.

  Amy felt it, felt it all. She felt and saw and knew. The woman’s arms around him, pulling him down and down. The taste of pool water, like demon’s breath. The soft thunk as they reached the bottom, their bodies entwined like lovers’.

  How Carter had loved her. That was what Amy felt most keenly: his love. The man’s life had stopped right there, at the bottom of the pool, his mind forever trapped in a loop of sorrow. Oh please, let me, thought Anthony Carter. I’ll die if you want me to, I would die for you if you asked, let me be the one to die instead. And then the bubbles rising as the woman took the first breath, her lungs filling with the awful water, the deep spasm of death moving through her; and then the letting go.

  His was the sadness at the center of the world. The Chevron Mariner: that’s what this place was. It was the very beating heart of grief.

  Blood was dripping from her as she made her way aft across the tilted deck. Amy could feel the change coming, a rumbling in the hills above. It would sweep down upon her like an avalanche. It would obliterate her, fashion her anew. She descended into the bowels of the ship, its maze of halls, its listing passages of pipe. Her feet sloshed through standing water the color of rust. Rainbow shimmers danced upon its surface. She moved by instinct. She homed in. She was the receiver to Carter’s beacon, which inexorably drew her down and down and down.

  The pump room.

  They were hanging everywhere, filling the space with their glow. They clung to every surface. They lay curled upon the floor like children. Here was the reservoir, the lair. The nest of Anthony Carter, his doleful legions suspended in abeyance. Where are you? she thought, and as she did her body shook, and in the wake of this convulsive jolt came a massive tightening in her abdomen, as if she’d been clenched by a giant fist. She staggered, fighting to remain upright. Blots of blackness swelled across her vision. It was happening. It was happening now.

  I am here.

  —Where? Where are you? Please, I think that I am… dying.

  Come to me, Amy. Come to me come to me come to me …

  A door stood before her. Had she opened it? She stumbled forward, down the narrow passageway beyond. The floor was slick with oil, the blood of the earth, time’s distillate, compressed by a planet. She came to a second portal. T1, it was marked: Tank No. 1. She knew what lay beyond. It had ever been thus. With all her strength she gripped the rusted ring and turned. Space flew open wide around her, as if she’d entered an immense cathedral.

  And there he was. Anthony Carter, Twelfth of Twelve. Wizened and small, a wisp of a thing, no larger than the man he’d been and, in his heart, still was. A being of refusal made flesh. He lay on the floor, in the waste of the world; slowly he unfurled himself, rising to meet her. Carter the Sorrowful, the One Who Could Not, locked in the prison that he himself had made.

  “Help me,” said Amy, a last great shudder moving through her, taking her over, and she fell into his arms.

  * * *

  And then she was somewhere else.

  She was under a highway overpass. Amy knew this place, or so it felt. Its sights and sounds and smells were laden with a weight of memory. The echoing roar of cars passing overhead; the click-click-click of the roadway’s joints; the drifting trash and grime and heavy, smoke-choked air. Amy was standing at the edge of the road, holding a cardboard sign: HUNGRY, ANYTHING WILL HELP, GOD BLESS you. Traffic streamed by, cars, trucks, no one even looking her way. She was dressed in rags; her hands were black with grime. Her stomach was a stone of cold emptiness. The heedless vehicles flew past. Why would no one stop?

  Then, the car. A large SUV, dark and gleaming: it slowed, then stopped, not so much drawing to the curb as alighting, like a great black bird. Its tinted windows fashioned squares of perfect reflection, doubling the world. With a soft mechanical whir, the passenger window drew down.

  “Amy, hello.”

  Wolgast was sitting at the wheel, dressed in a navy suit and dark tie. He was smoothly shaved, his hair swept back from his forehead, shining faintly, as if it were still damp from the shower. “You’re right on time.” Smiling, he leaned across to open the door. “Why don’t you get in?”

  Amy placed her sign on the ground and climbed onto the passenger seat. The air inside the car was cool, with a leathery smell.

  “It’s wonderful to see you,” Wolgast said. “Don’t forget to buckle up, sweetheart.”

  Her amazement was such that she could barely form words. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  They drove clear of the underpass, into summer sunshine. Around them the shops and houses and cars flowed past, a world of busy humanity. The car bounced agreeably under them on its cushioning springs.

  “How far is it?”

  Wolgast shrugged vaguely. “Not very. Just up the road a bit.” He glanced sidelong. “I have to say, you’re looking very well, Amy. So grown up.”

  “What… is this place?”

  “Well, Texas.” He made a face of distaste. “All of this is Houston, Texas.” A memory took hold of his face. “Lila got so sick of hearing about it. ‘Brad, it’s just a state like any other,’ she always said.”

  “But how are we here?”

  “The how, I don’t know. I don’t think there’s an answer to that. As for the why …” He glanced at her again. “I’m one of his, you understand.”

  “Carter’s.”

  Wolgast nodded.

  “Are you in the ship, too?”

  “The ship? No.”

  “Where, then?”

  He didn’t respond right away. “I think it’s best if he explains it to you.” His eyes shifted quickly to Amy’s face again. “You really do look wonderful, Amy. The way I always imagined. I know he’ll be happy to see you.”

  They had moved into a neighborhood of large houses, lush trees, and wide, well-kept lawns. Wolgast pulled into the driveway of a white-brick colonial and stopped the car.

  “Here we are. I guess I’ll leave you to it, then.”

  “You’re not coming with me?”

  “Oh, I’m afraid I’m just the messenger this time. Not even. More like the deliveryman. Just go around back.”

  “But I don’t want to go without you.”

  “It’s all right, sweetheart, he won’t bite you.” He took her hand and gently squeezed. “Go on now, he’s waiting. I’ll see you again soon. Everything will be all right, I promise.”

  Amy exited the car. Locusts were buzzing in the trees, a sound that somehow deepened the stillness. The air was heavy with moisture and smelled of freshly mown grass. Amy turned to
glance at Wolgast, but the car had disappeared. This place, she understood, was different in that way; things could simply disappear.

  She made her way up the driveway, through a trellised gate wreathed with flowering vines, into the backyard. Carter was sitting at a table on the patio, wearing jeans and a dirty T-shirt and heavy, unlaced boots. He was rubbing his neck and hair with a towel; his mower was parked nearby, exuding a faint aroma of gasoline. At Amy’s approach he looked up, smiling.

  “Well, there you are.” He gestured toward the two glasses of liquid on the table. “I just got done here—come and sit a spell. I thought you might like some tea.” The smile broadened to a wide, white grin. “Ain’t nothing as good as a glass of tea on a hot June day.”

  Amy took the chair across from him. He had a small, smooth face and gentle eyes and close-cropped hair, like a cap of dark wool. His cocoa-colored skin was speckled with black spots; flecks of grass were on his shirt and arms. Adjacent to the patio, the pool was a presence of cool, inviting blueness, the water gently lapping at its tiled edges. It was only then that Amy realized it was the same house where she and Greer had spent the night.

  “This place,” said Amy. She angled her face toward the buzzing trees. Rich sunlight warmed her skin. “It’s so beautiful.”

  “It rightly is, Miss Amy.”

  “But we’re still inside the ship, aren’t we?”

  “In a manner,” Carter replied evenly. “In a manner.”

  They sat in silence, sipping the cold tea. Beads of moisture dribbled down the sides of the glasses. Things were coming clearer now.

  “I think I know why I’m here,” said Amy.

  “I’m expecting you do.”

  The air had suddenly chilled; Amy shivered, drawing her arms around herself. Dry leaves, like bits of brown paper, were blowing across the patio; the light had lost its color.

  “I been thinking on you, Miss Amy. All the while. Me and Wolgast, we had us a talk. A good talk, like you and me is having now.”

  Whatever Carter was going to tell her, she suddenly didn’t want it. It was the leaves that made her think it: she was afraid.