The Twelve tpt-2

by Justin Cronin

“Who were you talking to?”

  She gave no answer. She seemed to be only partially present. Was she sleepwalking?

  Then: “I suppose we should go back.”

  “Don’t scare me like that.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” She flicked her eyes downward at the gun. “What are you doing with that?”

  “I didn’t know where you’d gone. I was worried.”

  “I thought I made myself clear, Major. Put it away now.”

  She walked past him, headed back to camp.

  42

  Time interminable; time without end. His existence was a nightmare from which he couldn’t awaken. Thoughts floating past like glinting dust motes, darting from wherever he looked. Every day they came. The men with their glowing, blood-red eyes. They unhooked the bloated bags and bore them away on their rattling cart and hung fresh ones on their stands. Always the bags, endlessly needful, constantly filling with their drip-drip-drip of Grey.

  They were men who enjoyed their work. They told little jokes, they kept themselves amused. They enjoyed themselves at his expense, like children taunting an animal at the zoo. Here now, they cooed, extending the fragrant dropper toward his mouth, does baby need his bottle? Is baby hungry?

  He tried to resist them. He clenched his muscles against the chains, he turned his face away. He mustered every ounce of will to deny them, yet always he succumbed. The hunger soared inside him like a great black bird.

  —Say it for Mama. Say, I’m a baby who needs his bottle, I promise to be good. Be a good baby, Grey.

  The tip of the dropper wafted enticingly under his nose, the scent of blood like a bomb exploding in his brain, a million neurons firing in an electrical storm of pure desire.

  —You’ll like this one. An excellent vintage. You like the young ones, don’t you, Grey?

  Tears squeezed from his eyes. Tears of longing and revulsion. The tears of his too-long life, a century of lying naked in chains. The tears of being Grey.

  —Please.

  —Say it. I like the young ones.

  —I’m begging you. Don’t make me.

  —The words, Grey. A wave of sour breath close to his ear. Let me … hear … the … words.

  —Yes! Yes, I like the young ones! Please! Just a taste! Anything!

  And then at last the dropper, its delicious earth-rich squirt on his tongue. He smacked his lips. He rolled the thick muscle of his tongue around the walls of his mouth. He suckled like the baby they said he was, wishing he could make the feeling last, though he never could: an involuntary bob of his throat and it was gone.

  —More, more.

  —Now, Grey. You know there can’t be any more. A dropper a day keeps the doctor away. Just enough to make you keep churning out the viral goodness.

  —Just one taste, that’s all. I promise I won’t tell.

  A dark chuckle: And supposing I did? Supposing I gave you just one more dropper? What would you do then?

  —I won’t, I swear, I just want …

  —I’ll tell you what you want. What you want, my friend, is to rip those chains right out of the floor. Which, I have to say, is pretty much what I’d want in your situation. That’s what I’d be thinking about. I’d want to kill the men who put me here. A pause, then the voice coming closer: Is that what you want, Grey? To kill all of us?

  He did. He wanted to rip them limb from limb. He wanted their blood to flow like water; he ached to hear their final cries. He wanted this even more than death itself, though just a little. Lila, he thought, Lila, I can feel you, I know that you are near. Lila, I would save you if I could.

  —See you tomorrow, Grey.

  And on and on. The bags came empty and went away full, the dropper did its work. It was his blood that sustained them, the men with their glowing eyes. They fed on Grey’s blood and lived forever, as he lived forever. Grey eternal, in chains.

  Sometimes he wondered where the blood they fed him came from. But not very often. It wasn’t the kind of thing he wanted to think about.

  Occasionally he still heard Zero, though it wasn’t like Zero was talking to him anymore. That part of the deal seemed to have expired, long ago. The voice was muffled and far away, as if Grey were eavesdropping on a conversation taking place on the other side of a wall, and all things considered, he counted it a small mercy to be left alone with only his own thoughts for company, no Zero and his talk-talk-talk filling up his head.

  Guilder was the only one who took his blood straight from the source. That was what they called Grey, the Source, like he wasn’t even a person but a thing, which he supposed he was. Not always but sometimes, when he was feeling especially hungry, or for other reasons Grey couldn’t guess at, Guilder would appear at the door in his underclothes, so as not to get blood on his suit. He would unhook the bag from its tube, viscous fluid spurting over him, and place the IV in his mouth, sucking up Grey’s blood like a kid taking soda pop from a straw. Lawrence, he liked to say, you’re not looking so hot. Are they feeding you enough? I worry about you all alone down here. Once, long ago, years or even decades, Guilder had brought a mirror with him. It was in what used to be called a lady’s compact. Guilder popped the lid and angled it to Grey’s face, saying, Why don’t you take a look? An old man’s face gazed back at him, wrinkled as a prune—the face of someone sitting on the fence of death.

  He was permanently dying.

  Then one day he awoke to find Guilder straddling a chair, looking at him. His tie was undone around his neck, his hair askew; his suit was rumpled and stained. Grey could tell he was late in his cycle. He could smell the rot coming off the man—a dumpstery, corpselike, slightly fruity stink—but Guilder made no move to feed. Grey had the sense that Guilder had been sitting there for some time.

  “Let me ask you something, Lawrence.”

  The question was going to be asked one way or another. “Okay.”

  “Have you ever… now, how do I put this?” Guilder shrugged vaguely. “Have you ever been in love?”

  Coming from the man’s mouth, the word seemed completely alien. Love was the property of a different age; it was positively prehistoric.

  “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

  Guilder’s face bunched with a frown. “Really, it seems like a perfectly simple question to me. Choirs of angels singing in their heaven, your feet levitating three inches off the ground. You know. In love.”

  “I guess not.”

  “It’s a yes or no thing, Lawrence. It’s one or the other.”

  He thought of Lila. Love was what he felt for her, but not the way Guilder meant. “No. I’ve never been in love.”

  Guilder was looking past him. “Well I was, once. Her name was Shawna. Though that wasn’t her real name, of course. She had skin like butter, Lawrence. I’m totally serious here. That was how it tasted. Something a little Asian about her eyes, you know that look? And her body, well.” He rubbed his face and exhaled a melancholy breath. “I don’t feel that part anymore. The sex part. The virus pretty much takes care of that. Nelson thought the steroids you were taking might have been the reason the virus was different in you. There might have been some truth to that. But you make your bed, you have to lie in it.” He chuckled ironically. “Make your bed. That’s funny. That’s a laugh.”

  Grey said nothing. Whatever mood Guilder was in, it seemed to have nothing to do with him.

  “I suppose it’s not such a bad thing on the whole. I can’t honestly say that sex ever did me any favors. But even after all these years, I still think about her. Little things. Things she said. The way the sun looked, falling over her bed. I kind of miss the sun.” He paused. “I know she didn’t love me. It was all a big act was what it was. I knew that from the start, even if I couldn’t admit it to myself. But there you have it.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Why?” His gaze narrowed on Grey’s face. “That should be obvious. You can be pretty obtuse, if you’ll pardon my saying so. Because we
’re friends, Lawrence. I know, you probably think I’m the worst thing that ever happened to you. It could certainly appear that way. I’m sure this all might feel a little unfair. But you really left me no choice. Honestly, Lawrence? As odd as it seems, you’re the oldest friend I have.”

  Grey held his tongue. The man was completely delusional. Grey found himself involuntarily flexing against his chains. The greatest happiness of his life, short of dying, would be to pop Guilder’s head clean off.

  “What about Lila? I don’t mean to pry, but I always thought there was something between you two. Which was pretty surprising, given your history.”

  Something twisted inside him. He didn’t want to talk about this, not now, not ever. “Leave me alone.”

  “Don’t be like that. I’m just asking.”

  “Why don’t you go fuck yourself?”

  Guilder inched his face a little closer, his voice lowered confidentially. “Tell me something. Do you still hear him, Lawrence? The truth now.”

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  Guilder shot him a correcting frown. “Please, can we not? Do this? He’s real is what I’m asking you. It’s not some bullshit in my head.” He was peering at Grey intently. “You know what he’s asked me to do, don’t you?”

  There seemed no point denying it. Grey nodded.

  “And on the whole, taking everything into consideration, you think it’s a good idea? I feel like I need your input here.”

  “Why does it matter what I think?”

  “Don’t sell yourself short. You’re still his favorite, Lawrence, no doubt about that. Oh sure, I may be the one in charge. I’m the captain of this ship. But I can tell.”

  “No.”

  “No what?”

  “No, it’s not a good idea. It’s a terrible idea. It’s the worst idea in the world.”

  Guilder’s eyebrows lifted, like a pair of parachutes catching the air.

  “Look at you.” For the first time in eons, Grey actually laughed. “You think he’s your friend? You think any of them are your friends? You’re their bitch, Guilder. I know what they are. I know what Zero is. I was there.”

  He’d obviously struck a nerve. Guilder began clenching and unclenching his fists; Grey wondered, in a lazy way, if the man was about to hit him. The prospect didn’t concern him in the least; it would break the monotony. It would be something different, a new kind of pain.

  “I have to say, your response is more than a little disappointing, Lawrence. I was hoping I could count on a little support. But I’m not going to stoop to your level. I know you’d like that, but I’ll be the bigger man. And just a little FYI: the Project was completed today. A real ribbon cutter. I was saving that as, you know, a surprise, something I thought you’d enjoy hearing about. You could be a part of this if you wanted. But apparently I’ve misjudged you.”

  He rose and headed for the door.

  “What do you want, Guilder?”

  The man turned back, leveling his blood-red eyes.

  “What’s in it for you? I never could figure that out.”

  A long silence, then: “Do you know what they are, Grey?”

  “Of course I know.”

  But Guilder shook his head. “No, you don’t. If you did, you wouldn’t have to ask. So I’ll tell you. They’re the freest things on earth. Without remorse. Without pity. Without love. Nothing can touch them, hurt them. Imagine what that would be like, Lawrence. The absolute freedom of it. Imagine how wonderful that would be.”

  Grey made no reply; there was none to be made.

  “You ask me what I want, my friend, and I’ll give you my answer. I want what they have. I want that little whore out of my head. I want to feel… nothing.”

  The vase hit the wall in a satisfying explosion of glass. The car bombing was the last straw. This had to end now.

  Guilder summoned Wilkes to his office. By the time his chief of staff entered the room, Guilder had managed to calm himself a little.

  “Round up ten more per day.”

  Wilkes seemed taken aback. “Um, anybody in particular?”

  “It doesn’t matter!” Jesus, sometimes the man could be thick as a plank. “Don’t you get it? It never mattered. Just pull them out of morning roll.”

  Wilkes hesitated. “So you’re saying it should just be, you know, arbitrary. Not people we suspect of having ties to the insurgency, necessarily.”

  “Bravo, Fred. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  For a second Wilkes just stood there, staring at Guilder with a bewildered look on his face. Not bewildered: disturbed.

  “Yes? Am I talking to myself here?”

  “If you say so. I can work up a list and send it down the hill to HR.”

  “I don’t care how you do it. Just put it together.” Guilder tossed a hand toward the door. “Now get out of here. And send an attendant to clean up this mess.”

  43

  The route to Hollis was more circuitous than Peter had anticipated. The trail had taken them first to a friend of Lore’s, who knew someone who knew someone else; always they seemed to be one step away, only to find that the target had moved.

  Their last lead directed them to a Quonset hut where an illegal gambling hall operated. It was after midnight when they found themselves walking down a dark, trash-strewn alley in H-town. Curfew had long passed, but from everywhere around them came little bits of noise—barking voices, the crash of glass, the tinkling of a piano.

  “Quite a place,” Peter said.

  “You haven’t been here much, have you?” said Michael.

  “Not really. Well, never, actually.”

  A shadowy figure stepped from a doorway into their path. A woman.

  “Oye, mi soldadito. ¿Tienes planes esta noche?”

  She moved forward from the shadows. Neither young nor old, her body so thin it was nearly boyish, yet the sensual confidence of her voice and the way she stood—shifting from one foot to the other, her pelvis pushing gently against her tiny skirt—combined with the heavy-lidded declivity of her eyes, as they trolled the length of Peter’s body, to give her an undeniable sexual force.

  “¿Cómo te puedo ayudar, Teniente?”

  Peter swallowed; his face felt warm. “We’re looking for Cousin’s place.”

  The woman smiled a row of silk-stained teeth. “Everybody’s somebody’s cousin. I can be your cousin if you want.” Her eyes drifted to Lore, then Michael. “And what about you, handsome? I can get a friend. Your girlfriend can come if she wants, too. Maybe she’d like to watch.”

  Lore gripped Michael by the arm. “He’s not interested.”

  “We’re really just looking for someone,” Peter said. “Sorry to have troubled you.”

  She gave a dark laugh. “Oh, it’s no trouble. You change your mind, you know where to find me, Teniente.”

  They moved along. “Nice fellow,” Michael said.

  Peter glanced back down the alley. The woman, or what he’d assumed was a woman, had faded back into the doorway.

  “I’ll be damned. Are you sure?”

  Michael chuckled ruefully, shaking his head. “You really have to get out more often, hombre.”

  Ahead they saw the Quonset hut. Blades of light leaked from the edges of the door, where a pair of beefy men stood guard. The three of them paused in the shelter of an overflowing trash bin.

  “Better let me do the talking,” Lore said.

  Peter shook his head. “This was my idea. I should be the one to go.”

  “In that uniform? Don’t be ridiculous. Stay with Michael. And the two of you, try not to get picked up by any trannies.”

  They watched her march up to the door. “Is this such a good idea?” Peter asked quietly.

  Michael held up a hand. “Just wait.”

  At Lore’s approach the two men tensed, moving closer together to bar her entry. A brief conversation ensued, beyond Peter’s hearing; then she returned.

  “Okay, we’re in.”r />
  “What did you tell them?”

  “That the two of you just got paid. And you’re drunk. So try to act it.”

  The hut was crowded and loud, the space partitioned by large, hexagonal tables where cards were being dealt. Clouds of silk smoke choked the air, consorting with the sour-sweet aroma of mash; there was a still nearby. Half-dressed women—at least Peter took them to be women—were seated on stools at the periphery of the room. The youngest couldn’t have been a day over sixteen, the oldest nearly fifty, haggish in her clownish makeup. More were moving in and out of a curtain at the back, usually in the arm-draped company of a visibly intoxicated man. As Peter understood it, the whole idea of H-town was to overlook a certain amount of illegal vice but to cordon it off within a specific area. He could see the logic—people were people—but staring it in the face was a different matter. He wondered if Michael was right about him. How had he gotten so prim?

  “Not go-to they’re playing, is it?” he asked Michael.

  “Texas hold ’em, twenty-dollar ante from the looks of it. A bit rich for my blood.” His eyes, like Peter’s, were patrolling the room for Hollis. “We should try to blend in. How much scrip do you have?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “I gave it all to Sister Peg.”

  Michael sighed. “Of course you did. You’re consistent, I’ll give you that.”

  “The two of you,” Lore said. “What a couple of pussies. Watch and learn, my friends.”

  She strode up to the closest table and took a chair. From the pocket of her jeans she withdrew a wad of bills, peeled off two, and tossed them into the pot. A third bill produced a shot glass, the contents of which she downed with a toss of her sun-bleached hair. The dealer laid out two cards for each player; then the betting began. For the first four hands Lore seemed to take very little interest in her cards, chatting with the other players, folding quickly with a roll of her eyes. Then, on the fifth, with no discernible change in her demeanor, she began to drive up the bet. The pile on the table grew; Peter guessed there were at least three hundred Austins sitting there for the taking. One by one the others dropped out until just a single player remained, a skinny man with pockmarked cheeks who was wearing a hydro’s jumpsuit. The last card was dealt; stone-faced, Lore put down five more bills. The man shook his head and folded his cards.