"We're getting preventricular beats," Hines warned. "She's losing compression."
"Dammit!" Simmons hissed. "She's hemorrhaging. Do a pericardialcentesis. Drain her off."
The team switched gears. A large-bore needle was inserted into the chest cavity to drain the heart, restore compression. It didn't work. Jane's blood pressure kept dropping even as her heart sped up, desperately pumping. Lividity from stagnating blood mottled her flesh. Her breath was forced, irregular. The monitor continued to broadcast disaster.
Jane's neck veins began to bulge ominously.
"The bleeding's entered the heart sac," Hines said. "Must have lacerated the aorta."
"Shit!!" Simmons cursed. "All right, prep for direct cardiac massage. We gotta crack her chest."
"With an eviscerated bowel?" Brinks said incredulously. "It'll kill her!"
"She'll drown in her own blood if we don't," Simmons countered, gesturing to the monitor. "It's my call. Do it!"
The rest of the team obeyed, shifting positions as suddenly extraneous members fell back and a tray of instruments was wheeled forth and readied. Cardiac massage was exactly that: a last-ditch effort to save a life. Open the chest, reach in, and manually grasp the heart. Squeeze until the blood emptied from the sac. Release, let fill, squeeze again. Repeat until the heart took over or they pulled a sheet over the patient's head.
Tanya loaded another syringe, injected ten milligrams of morphine into the IV feed. Jane's eyes fluttered, rolled back in her head. Her left arm was unstrapped, pulled up over her head to expose the rib cage. "Bag her," Brinks told Tanya. "Regulate her breathing."
Tanya nodded, took hold of the bubblelike attachment beneath the face mask. She began counting and squeezing, forcing air into the lungs as Hillary moved in, swabbed the incision area with Betadine solution.
Simmons stepped over, took a scalpel in one hand, and with one fluid motion made a ten-inch-long incision between the fourth and fifth ribs, just beneath her left breast. Epidermis, membrane, and muscle tissue yawned wide, exposing the glistening slats of bone.
"Suction," he said. Suction was applied, sluicing away more blood. Simmons picked up the rib spreader, a device resembling a large stainless-steel set of salad tongs with the tines pointing out. Working quickly, he hooked them into the space between the ribs and applied pressure, forcing them apart.
There was a hideous cracking noise as the ribs snapped and separated completely, creating a red, raw, fist-sized gap. The surgeon took a deep breath, then began working his hand into the breach—first his fingers to the knuckles, then the knuckles themselves. His hand disappeared to the wrist, blindly pressing into the cavity. Pushing the lung aside.
Reaching for the heart.
Deep in the darkness, Jane stirred, fought her way up from drug-induced oblivion. Something was moving inside her, violating her own healing process, weakening her grip on the animal.
Jane focused, piecing together the scattered remnants of awareness. Feeling returned, a billion needles thrusting through her deadened nerve endings. She hovered in the blackness, hesitating. To fully awaken was to fully experience the pain, and the pain was astonishing: a white-hot veil on the border of consciousness, like an aurora borealis of agony.
Jane was afraid. Her heart felt distant, leaden, slowing. Her thoughts skittered, refused to gel. Her bestial core howled in her head: maddened, writhing, tormented. If they didn't stop it would break free and kill them, kill all of them and herself in the bargain, like a dog with its leg caught in a steel trap biting the hand of its master. And there wouldn't be a thing she could do about it.
She had to break through and warn them, make them go away, make them stop, or they were all dead.
She had to cross over the line. . . .
"Dammit! I can't find her fucking heart!"
"What??"
"Nothing's where it's supposed to be!" Simmons was mid-forearm deep, straining. "Lemme see those damned X rays!" He stopped. "No, wait! I got it!"
He took the muscle in his hand, squeezed it. Her heart squeezed back.
And Jane opened her eyes.
Tanya stared down, aghast. Jane looked right through her, her eyes fixed on some inner distance. Tears welled in her eyes, rolled down her cheeks. "SHIT, SHE'S AWAKE!!" Tanya cried.
Across the room, bedlam. "WHAT THE FUCK?" Brinks yelled. "DAMMIT, KEEP HER UNDER!"
"How?"
"Another ten milligrams of morphine!"
"But . . ."
"DO IT!"
Tanya grabbed another dose, fed it into the loop. Jane went under again. Just as her eyes closed the cardiac monitor went off: a piercing alarm slicing through the chaos of the room.
"SHE'S FLATLINING!"
The team watched in horror as the sagging peaks dropped off, disappeared entirely. "Motherfucker!" Simmons spat, sliding his hand out of the hole. This was insane. "Prep for direct cardiac shock, set it for twenty-five Jules."
Nurse Hillary appeared beside him, a pair of surgical steel paddles in her hands. The paddles were cabled to the electroshock machine, a squat gray box on a rolling cart. She set the dial, handed him the paddles. Everyone braced themselves: direct shock was potentially lethal. Too much juice would burn her heart, literally cook the muscle inside her chest.
Simmons grabbed the paddles, quickly slid one inside the chest cavity and positioned it over the heart, then placed the other on her breastbone. Simmons backed off, ;is everyone held their collective breath.
"CLEAR!!"
There was a sizzling buzz as the current hit home. Jane's body arched and stiffened on the table. The jolt shut off; Jane collapsed back onto the table. A ripple rocked her flesh like an earthquake aftershock, spreading through her extremities.
On the monitor, nothing. The alarm wailed maddeningly.
"Damn!" Simmons yelled. "Increase voltage to thirty Jules!"
"You'll fry her!" Brinks argued.
"She's dead anyway! DO IT!!!"
Hillary upped the voltage. Simmons repositioned the paddles. "Ready," he said, standing back.
"CLEAR!!"
Another searing jolt, followed by a faint burning smell. The room went deathly still.
Then, on the monitor, a spike.
A cheer went up as another followed, then another. The peaks grew higher, gaining strength.
Yes.
The team breathed a collective sigh of relief, watching her vital signs climb back onto the charts and then set about the task of holding that hard-won ground. Pulse, respiration, blood pressure: all began, bit by bit, to normalize. Her blue color faded, was restored to its previous deathly pallor.
But as they worked, Tanya was struck by the palpable silence that had now fallen over the team. This was not a typical reaction to success. Ordinarily, a victory over these kinds of odds would inspire jubilation. But these people seemed troubled; and even more, they seemed confused.
It was a reaction she completely understood. She felt exactly the same way. And all you needed was one look around the room to see that the perception was unanimous. The faraway look in Dr. Simmons's eyes suggested he'd switched over to auto-pilot now: wheels were spinning in his head, already groping for plausible theories. Brinks kept furtively glancing at Simmons; he smelled medical history in the making, was hoping that he'd find a way in.
The eye contact between Parker and Hines, the techies, was just a little more naked. What the hell is going on? was what they wanted to know. That went double for the orderlies—especially that lip-flapping weasel Mancini, who kept sneaking little inquisitory looks around the room.
What the hell is going on? It was an excellent question. And she had little doubt that, once it hit the rumor mill, it would take Huntington Memorial by storm. She could practically smell the buzz already, and it hadn't even left the room.
Because nobody could have survived all that damage, much less the procedures it had taken to bring her through. Not to mention the weird blood, the improbable X rays, the skewed location of the
heart. In the heat of the moment, there'd been too much going on to stop and hold a discussion group; but she knew that everybody here was quietly keeping score. This wasn't good luck and a strong constitution. This was Ripley's Believe It or Not.
Already, Jane Doe's readings were pegging up and holding, coining on strong. You should be dead, Tanya found herself thinking again.
And as they prepared to take her up to surgery, Tanya wondered gravely about the ordeal this woman faced. Simmons would want answers, that much was for certain. And then everybody would want their piece of the pie. It was no fun being a medical anomaly; there would be tests— lots and lots of tests—plus endless, exhaustive monitoring. If they thought they had a live one here, her little odyssey through the American health care system had only just begun.
Poor girl, she thought, as they wheeled the woman out. Recovery would be the least of her worries. I don't envy you this part one bit.
Then the elevator came, and it was out of her hands.
37
I HAVE TO ask you something, he said, and she told him she would tell him what she could. He nodded and buried his shovel in the mud once again.
He said: you have to tell me what I am.
The old woman was silent for a time. Her pain was palpable, as was her anger. He waited, while the rain continued to fall. He was knee-deep now. It would soon be dawn.
He tossed up a shovelful of mud, sank the blade deep again. At last, she spoke.
We are what we are, she said, because we know we are.
Another shovelful, another pause. And me? he asked.
What you are, she told him, remains to be seen.
He kept digging. The ground kept bleeding back into the hole, mud and runoff from the infinite rain. The woods hissed and rustled around them. His arms were numb. His back was numb. He continued to dig, tried not to blame himself for thinking so slowly. He had to keep reminding himself that he was still in shock.
I'm sorry, he said. I don't understand.
We 're creatures of imagination and will, as much as of flesh and blood, she explained. The power to Change sleeps in everyone.
But not everyone is a wolf, he said.
No, she said. Not everyone.
He threw another shovelful, forced himself to ask the next question: so what was she?
She, the old woman replied, was out of control.
The hole grew deeper. On the ground beside him, Nora's corpse lay sprawled across a piece of tarpaulin. A solitary Coleman lantern hissed and glowed, the only illumination for miles around. It cast harsh shadows on the body, the pulsing light making the shadows dance. The body had changed much in the last several hours: discolored and bloated, swollen from the rain. She was almost human. But not quite.
He found it very hard to look at her.
How do we die? was what he finally asked.
The old woman shivered, a gaunt silhouette. It's not mysterious, she told him. We 're still mortal. When you cut us, we bleed. We live long, and heal quickly. But we die in the end, just like everything else.
And we can be killed.
The inference hung heavy in the air. Syd said nothing, kept digging the hole.
How did Jane's parents die? he asked.
She shivered again, went on to explain. Mae's daughter Clarisse and her husband, Corey. Gunned down in the mountains, by poachers. It was pretty much just like Jane had said, only she'd neglected to mention that they were actually wolves at the time.
So they didn't need silver bullets, he said. Gramma Mae looked away, shaking her head.
Don't believe everything you see in the movies, she told him. No full moon. No gypsy curses. The Change was not a curse; she couldn't stress that enough. Not unless they caught you, or you lost control. The Change was a blessing.
Albeit a blessing in disguise . . .
Syd threw another shovelful of mud clear of the hole. He was having a hard time seeing it that way. He kept thinking about Jane, with her belly slashed and shredded. Kept thinking about Jane, and the wolf in the woods.
Kept thinking about Nora, and the function of the hole that he was digging.
It was cold. Soon, the old woman would have to go inside. Her face was streaked. Tears, rain. It was impossible to tell. She had suffered, too, in many ways more than him. She had certainly suffered longer.
There were a few more things he needed to hear.
Has she always known what she was?
All her life, came the answer. The power came with maturity, she explained, like the ability to conceive. But she has always known.
The shovel came up, went down again. Why didn't she tell me?
She didn't know you, she said flatly. And she didn't know if you could be trusted. She looked away, into the shadows.
Already, you're dangerous.
He flinched at the brutal truth of it. The earth was bleeding back into itself, trying to fill the hole. He had to keep digging. He was almost done.
It shouldn't have happened this way, she said.
And he told her, I'm sorry.
The hole deepened. He struggled against exhaustion, wondered if there was anything else he needed to ask her. But it was she who posed the next and most important question: do you love her?
The digging stopped.
And at first, he thought she meant Nora, and he was horrified by the thought of having to confront his feelings: not right now; not right here; not in front of Gramma Mae.
But, no, that wasn't what she'd meant at all. The question she asked was far easier to answer.
And far more important, in the final analysis.
Yes, he said. Yes, I do.
She watched him a moment, then nodded. There was nothing more that needed to be said. Gramma Mae turned, started back toward the house. He watched her stooped gray form recede, went back to his digging. Just before she melded into the shadows she stopped, turned to him.
Your heart is the key, she said.
Guard it well.
And then she was gone, and he was alone: in the dark, in the rain, in a muddy bleeding hole that he diligently carved from out of the mountainside, while Nora's body slowly decayed beside him. Now that he was alone again, he felt the presence of that body more than ever.
Look at it, said a voice in his head.
No, he answered, out loud, digging in harder. Digging in deeper. Mud flew from his shovel and trickled back in. The war against nature was a losing battle. And yet he had no choice.
Look at it. The voice was adamant.
He shook his head, dug in. The voice was intimate and knowing. You want to know what you are? You want to know WHO you are?
He shook his head. Digging and digging and digging.
Take a good hard look at who you are.
Digging it nice and deep.
Do you still love her? That question again, unblunted by mercy. The shovel came down, came up again. The earth's blood ran.
Do you?
The voice was cold, incredibly cruel. He stared down at the hole. It was up to his hips. It was starting to flood. He paused to wipe his face. Tears, rain. It was impossible to tell.
DO YOU???
And it was hard, oh yes it was, to bring himself to look. But every second he waited, it just got harder. Such was the nature of fear. He had always known that. He knew it now, more than ever.
He took a halting breath, braced himself.
And looked at last.
He most clearly saw the undamaged side of her face.
It retained little of its beauty in death: the one remaining eye gone milky and dull, the features distorted with rage and rain and pain. The other side of her face mercifully blended into the night, like the raw bloody gap where her throat used to be. Her body was the color of chalk, caked with mud and bits of leaves. Her breasts sagged to either side, loosened by lacerations, purple with settling blood.
Rows of teats extended down along the torn and savaged abdomen. Her haunches were still caught in that nowhere land between
lupus and homo erectus. Neither the tail nor the fur had completely receded. The feet had elongated into shanks, stiff limbs clawing the air; the toes were large and padded, each tipped with hooklike talons, and matted with mud and gore.
He forced himself to look. Forced himself to see it all. And as he did he flashed back to that lost weekend, as the fog blew off his memory under the shadow of the storm. For the first time, he could recall the experience without blinders against the pain. She had shown him something then. She was showing him something now.
Syd looked at Nora and saw himself: half-human, half-monster; both devourer and devoured. He looked at her and saw the naked face of his purest bilateral soul, the truth of what he was. A creature of great beauty. A horror unbounded.
Now you know.
The hole was ready. The hole was deep enough. He leaned on the shovel like a crutch, as the last of his tears spilled free. They came out hard, were quickly spent. He climbed out of the grave.
The insects had already begun to explore her. Syd's human side was appalled, and he wanted them to stop. The animal side felt no such need. This was the next natural stage in the journey: meat drawn in as sustenance, spirit departing to greener fields, the husk returning to soil and seed.
Her backside had flattened, in livid conformity with the terrain. Rigor mortis had already begun to set in; it made her harder to move, but only a little. There were no words, no tears, no good-bye kiss. Nora slid over the edge and into the pit. Syd picked up the shovel, threw the first faceful in.
By dawn's first light, he had laid her to rest. Then he went back to the house, to collapse. And await the inevitable.
PART THREE
Vic
38
SYD GROANED and opened his eyes. For one all-too-brief moment, he lost all sense of self: didn't know who or where or even what he was. Then the world spun again, re-formed around him. He moaned, brought a hand up to massage his throbbing temples.
The hand was caked with dried mud.
"Oh, fuck," he mumbled, and it all came thundering back.
He was folded in half on the too-small living room couch, curled into an uncomfortable fetal crunch. He clothes were encrusted, stuck to his body. The dampness had settled deep into his bones. Someone had mercifully removed his boots, which sat neatly by the cooling fireplace embers. She'd thrown an old blanket on top of him, too.
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