Aftershock & Others

by F. Paul Wilson

The nucleus ignores me. It is impervious to my assault. And not just this nucleus, but in the nuclei of all the cells in the arteries throughout this particular host, and of all the assembled hosts.

  What is happening to me? Other cytoplasmic enzymes are attacking me, tearing me apart, ripping away my bases for their own purposes. Instead of taking charge, I am being devoured.

  This should not be! I am engineered for human cells! My nucleic acid is compatible with human RNA and DNA! The Maker must have made an error somewhere, else why would I be rejected? Worse than rejected—I am being destroyed!

  It is happening everywhere, in all the hosts…

  …steadily reducing my biomass…

  …further and further…

  …taking it below the critical mass for awareness…

  …the Maker has failed…

  …I…

  …aware…

  …somehow…somewhere…

  …I survive. I live. I grow…

  …in ever increasing numbers.

  In one host. Only one.

  But, oh, what a host. Its nuclei self-destruct in my presence, leaving me in complete control of its cells.

  And I am a tyrant. I whip the ribosomes to maximum capacity, forcing them to churn out duplicates of my nucleic acid and protein coat at a delirious rate, exhausting the cell’s reserves. But by the time that happens, the cytoplasm is fairly teeming with my children. They stretch against the confining membrane, and then burst free into the bloodstream, lysing the cell, leaving behind a leaking, dying husk as they spread like pollen on the wind.

  Immediately they are drawn into other cells in the artery’s middle layer. And the process repeats itself, again and again until once more my number is legion.

  Oh, Maker, forgive me for doubting You. You are as caring as You are brilliant. I see the genius of Your plan now. You engineered me for human cells, yes, but not for just any human cells. Only the cells of a specific human with a specific DNA pattern would be susceptible to me.

  You are an assassin god, but You are not a bomb thrower. You are a sniper god, and I am Your bullet.

  And see how well I perform as my biomass swells. See how I lyse the muscle cells of the arterial walls in ever-increasing numbers. See how the pressure of the blood within the lumens strains against the weak points, bulging them outward. Finally there are not enough living wall cells to contain the blood within. The aneurysmal swellings rupture and blood spews into brain tissue, gushes into the abdominal cavity in a crimson torrent.

  Blood pressure drops precipitously…to zero…complete vascular collapse. The host is doomed. There can be no return from this. Infusions of fluid will only leak through the countless tears in the arteries, far too many for surgical repair. Within minutes of the first rupture, the target host is dead.

  Oh, Maker, You are all powerful. I await Your reward for my valiant service.

  Maker?

  Maker, the temperature of the host is dropping…falling below the level where I can maintain the protein coats of my units.

  Maker, my units are dissolving.

  …steadily reducing my biomass…

  …further and further…

  …soon there will me no trace of me…

  …is this what You planned all along?

  Maker?

  1998

  I could call this The Year of the Award, but The Year the Music Died is more fitting.

  It started off with a whimper: word from our agent that the Cruise-Wagner deal for Masque was off. Seagram was buying Polygram. All film projects not already in production were canceled.

  Orphaned again.

  At least I had my novels. By early January I had a first draft of The Fifth Harmonic. It virtually wrote itself. Maybe because it was so personal.

  The inspiration came from an acquaintance (let’s call him Sal). He found a lump in his neck. Turned out he had a squamous cell carcinoma on his tongue. They cut out the tumor, removed lymph nodes and some muscle from his neck, and radiated him.

  The result: Sal can talk fine but the surgery left him with a wry neck and the radiation did a number on his salivary glands, leaving him with a perpetually dry mouth. He has to keep a water bottle nearby at all times, but otherwise his life goes on.

  It could have been so much worse.

  What if the tumor had been more advanced and more aggressive? He might have had to have his larynx removed (which means he’d be talking through a squawk box or burping his words) along with part of his jaw and most of his tongue. The more intense radiation would leave him with no saliva, and no taste buds either.

  Then I thought: What if that were me? As far as I’m concerned, that’s not living. I’d rather be dead. But before I died I’d explore every other possible means of a cure.

  And that’s how I came to The Fifth Harmonic. The premise was that a few New Age concepts are true. The protagonist is a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic (like me) with terminal cancer (not like me). I drew on the experiences of a trip into southwest Mexico the year before, and began fabricating.

  Beacon Films wanted to renew its option on The Tomb and that was fine by me. Film options are like an annuity. Every year you get a check and yet the book is still yours.

  I had an idea for a new Repairman Jack novel. I’d had so much fun with him in Legacies that I wanted another helping. Forge liked the idea too. I signed a contract for two new RJ novels.

  The new novel was called Conspiracies and would involve all sorts of paranoia. To get a firsthand look I enrolled in a UFO conference in Laughlin, Nevada. It turned out to be everything I’d hoped for and more. Some scenes—like the dealer’s room and the cocktail party—were lifted virtually as is from real life. The believers are kind of pathetic, but the scurrilous charlatans who feed on them should be horsewhipped.

  The interactive field had dried up, at least for freelancers. Nothing shaking out there. Matt and I finished our play “Syzygy” but didn’t know what to do with it.

  My agent sent out The Fifth Harmonic but couldn’t get a nibble. No one had any idea how they’d market my New Age thriller/travelogue.

  Warner Books published Masque in April with no fanfare.

  A film school student named Ian Fischer had approached me at a signing and told me how much he liked my short story “Foet.” Would it be okay if he adapted it for a student film? We worked out the details and he started shooting in the spring. I had a cameo as a diner in the restaurant scene. I think he did a great job. It’s still playing film festivals.

  Al Sarrantonio contacted me in June about a major horror anthology he was editing called 999. I sent him “Good Friday.” I wasn’t sure he’d go for a vampire story but he loved it.

  August saw the publication of Legacies. Jack was back.

  August also saw the dissolution of P.M. Interactive, Inc. The freelance interactive market was moribund and Matt and I saw no point in paying corporate taxes and filing corporate returns. On August 25 we buried PMI. Sad.

  I finished Conspiracies in October. I’d had more fun with this book than any in memory. And I’d found that a dollop of humor here and there fit nicely in a Repairman Jack novel.

  Since I was planning on sticking with Jack for a while, I went out and registered an Internet domain name: www.repairmanjack.com. Time for Jack to move to the Web.

  The year closed with the publication of my second short story collection, The Barrens and Others. I was extremely happy with the contents—some of the strongest work of my career, plus I was able to include the “Glim-Glim” teleplay. The only sour note was the license fee I had to pay to Tribune Media services before they’d allow my Dick Tracy story to appear. When I’d written the story I hadn’t realized (though I should have) that “Rockabilly” was work for hire. A good lesson learned: When you play in someone else’s sandbox, they get to keep your castle.

  I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  “AFTERSHOCK”

  “Aftershock” is another instance where I can answer the where-d
o-your-stories-come-from? question.

  Early in the year Peter Crowther e-mailed me about contributing an offbeat ghost story (somewhere in the 5K-word neighborhood) for an anthology he was editing—Hauntings. I said thanks, no, up to my lower lip and all that, and put it out of my head.

  A few weeks or months later I came across a newspaper article about a support group for survivors of lightning strikes. Survivors? Could there be that many? Turned out there are—most of them along Florida’s “lightning alley.” Some had been hit three, even four times.

  Four times? Almost sounded as if they were trying to get hit.

  Whoa…now there was a hook if I ever heard one. But why would someone want to get hit by lightning? I knew a story lurked there.

  And then Peter’s ghost anthology bobbed to the surface and I had my answer.

  After a trip to Venice and seeing a thunderstorm sweep through the Piazza San Marco, I had a location for the framing sequence.

  “Aftershock” tied up late (October) and at nearly three times the word count Peter could handle, so I never sent it to him. Instead, Shawna McCarthy took it for Realms of Fantasy. But it will always be Peter Crowther’s story.

  It was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award and—wonder of wonders—won. After many trips to the altar as a bridesmaid, I’d finally come away with a ring.

  And you know…it was kind of anticlimactic. Like that old Peggy Lee song, “Is That All There Is?” I didn’t even attend the ceremony—had Peter Straub accept it for me. The cool little haunted house sits on my mantle and looks nice there, but where’s the thrill?

  Aftershock

  “Please, signor,” the corporal says in fairly decent English, shouting over the rising wind. “You are not permitted up there!”

  I look down at him. “I’m well aware of that, but I’m all right. Really. Get back inside before you get hurt.”

  The patterned stone floor of the Piazza San Marco beckons three hundred feet below as he clings to one of the belfry columns and leans out just far enough to make eye contact with me up here on the top ledge. His hat is off, but his black shirt identifies him as one of the local Carabinieri. Hopefully a couple of his fellows have a good grip on his belt. I can tell he’s used up most of his courage getting this far. He’s not ready to risk joining me up here. Can’t say I blame him. One little slip and he’s a goner. I’ve developed a talent for reading faces, especially eyes, and his wide black pupils tell me how much he wants to go on living.

  I envy that.

  Less than an hour ago I was just another Venice tourist. I strolled through the crowded plaza, scattering the pigeon horde like ashes until I reached the campanile entrance. I stood on line for the elevator like everyone else and paid my eight thousand lire for a ride to the top.

  The Campanile di San Marco—by far the tallest structure in Venice, and one of the newest. The original collapsed shortly after the turn of the century but they replaced it almost immediately with this massive brick phallus the color of vodka sauce. Thoughtful of them to add an elevator to the new one. I would have hated climbing all those hundreds of steps to the top.

  The belfry doubles as an observation deck: four column-bordered openings facing each point of the compass, screened with wire mesh to keep too-ardent photographers from tumbling out. The space was packed with tourists when I arrived—French, English, Swiss, Americans, even Italians. Briefly I treated myself to the view—the five scalloped cupolas of San Marco basilica almost directly below, the sienna mosaic of tiled roofs beyond, and the glittering, hungry Adriatic Sea encircling it all—but I didn’t linger. I had work to do.

  The north side was the least crowded so I chose that for my exit. I pulled out a set of heavy wire clippers and began making myself a doorway in the mesh. I knew I wouldn’t get too far before somebody noticed and, sure enough, I soon heard cries of alarm behind me. A couple of guys tried to interfere but I bared my teeth and hissed at them in my best impression of a maniac until they backed off: Let the police handle the madman with the wire cutter.

  I worked frantically and squeezed through onto the first ledge, then used the mesh to climb to the second. That was hairy—I damn near slipped off. Once there, I edged my way around until I found a sturdy wire running vertically along one of the corners. I used the cutters to remove a three-foot section and left it on the ledge. Then I continued on until I reached a large marble sculpture of a griffinlike creature set into the brick on the south side. I climbed its grooves and ridges to reach the third and highest ledge.

  And so here I am, my back pressed against the green-tiled pinnacle as it angles to a point another thirty feet above me. The gold-plated statue of some cross-wielding saint—St. Mark, probably—pirouettes on the apex. A lightning rod juts above him.

  And in the piazza below I see the gathering gawkers. They look like pigeons, while the pigeons scurrying around them look like ants. Beyond them, in the Grand Canale, black gondolas rock at their moorings like hearses after a mass murder.

  The young national policeman pleads with me. “Come down. We can talk. Please do not jump.”

  Almost sounds as if he really cares. “Don’t worry,” I say, tugging at the rope I’ve looped around the pinnacle and tied to my belt. “I’ve no intention of jumping.”

  “Look!” He points southwest to the black clouds charging up the coast of the mainland. “A storm is coming!”

  “I see it.” It’s a beauty.

  “But you will be strike by lightning!”

  “That’s why I’m here.”

  The look in his eyes tells me he thought from the start I was crazy, but not this crazy. I don’t blame him. He doesn’t know what I’ve learned during the past few months.

  The first lesson began thousands of miles away, on a stormy Tuesday evening in Memorial Hospital emergency room in Lakeland, Florida. I’d just arrived for the second shift and was idly listening to the staff chatter around me as I washed up.

  “Oh, Christ!” said one of the nurses. “It’s her again. I don’t believe it.”

  “Hey, you’re right!” said another. “Who says lightning doesn’t strike twice?”

  “Twice, hell!” said a third voice I recognized as Kelly Rand’s, the department’s head nurse. “It’s this gal’s third.”

  Curious, I dried off and stepped into the hallway. Lightning strike victims are no big deal around here, especially in the summer—but three times?

  I saw Rand, apple-shaped and middle-aged, with hair a shade of red that does not exist in the human genome, and asked if I’d heard her right.

  “Yessiree,” she said. She held up a little metal box with a slim aerial wavering from one end. “And look what she had with her.”

  I took the box. Strike Zone™ Early Warning Lightning Alert ran in red letters across its face.

  “I’d say she deserves a refund,” Rand said.

  “How is she?”

  “Been through X-ray and nothing’s broken. Small third-degree burn on her left heel. Dr. Ross took care of that. Still a little out of it, though.”

  “Where’d they put her?”

  “Six.”

  Still holding the lightning detector, I stepped into cubicle six and found a slim blonde, her hair still damp and stringy from the rain, semiconscious on the gurney, an IV running into her right arm. A nurse’s aide was recording her vitals. I checked the chart when she was done.

  Kim McCormick, age thirty-eight, found “disrobed and unconscious” under a tree bordering the ninth fairway at a local golf course. The personal info had been gleaned from a New Jersey driver’s license. No known local address.

  A goateed EMS tech stuck his head into the cubicle. “She awake yet, Doc?”

  I shook my head.

  “All right, do me a favor, will you? When she comes to and asks about her golf clubs, tell her they was gone when we got there.”

  “What?”

  “Her clubs. We never saw them. I mean, she was on a golf course and sure as shit she’s g
onna be saying we stole them. People are always accusing us of robbing them or something.”

  “It says here she was naked when you found her.”

  “Not completely. She had on, like, sneakers, a bra, and you know, pan ties, but that was it.” He winked and gave me a thumbs-up to let me know he’d liked what he’d seen.

  “Where were her clothes?”

  “Stuffed into some sort of gym bag beside her.” He pointed to a vinyl bag under the gurney. “There it is. Her clothes was in there. Gotta run. Just tell her about the clubs, okay?”

  “It’s okay,” said a soft voice behind me. I turned and saw the victim looking our way. “I didn’t have any clubs.”

  “Super,” the tech said. “You heard her.” And he was gone.

  “How do you feel?” I said, approaching the gurney.

  Kim McCormick gazed at me through cerulean irises, dreamy and half obscured by her heavy eyelids. Her smile revealed white, slightly crooked teeth.

  “Wonderful.”

  Clearly she was still not completely out of her post-strike daze.

  “I hear this is the third time you’ve been struck. How in the—?”

  She was shaking her head. “It’s the eighth.”

  I grinned at the put-on. “Right.”

  “S’true.”

  My first thought was that she was either lying or crazy, but she didn’t seem to care if I believed her. And in those half-glazed eyes I saw a secret pain, a deep remorse, a hauntingly familiar loss. The same look I saw in my bathroom mirror every morning.

  I held up her lightning detector. “If that’s true, you should find one of these that really works.”