She
took a step back, then another one. The man walked around the bed and
kept approaching, expressionless, in complete silence. He was taking
his time. The flashes lit up his Bermudas and dark T-shirt, but his
face was still dark beneath a curtain of hair.
It's
not Ric. There's someone else on the island that we don't know about.
Her
back was pressed up against the metal wall. She felt the cold metal
make contact with her skin. That was when she realized she was stark
naked. She couldn't remember having taken off her clothes, which made
her suspect this wasn't actually happening. She was dreaming. It had
to be a dream.
But
regardless, watching that silhouette draw closer and closer in dead
silence was insufferable. She screamed. When she was a little girl
and had nightmares, she always woke up the moment she screamed. She
always thought, in fact, that screaming was what shattered the
nightmare, ended the horror.
Now,
it did nothing. She opened her eyes and the man was still there,
advancing slowly. If she reached out, she could touch him. His face
was like an abandoned building. All she could see were the hollow
walls of his cheeks and, behind that, the laddered ridges of his
vertebra. Aside from that there was no flesh or bones; it was totally
unreal, an empty space between two parentheses, a completely black
void...
His
head is a rat's nest, and the rat gnawed up his face and is living in
his brain. There's someone else on the island that we don't know
about...
...
black void, except for his eyes.
His
name is White Eyes, and he's come to see you, Elisa. To see all of
you, actually. A short visit, but one that will change everything.
Eyes
empty, like abscesses.
It
wasn't a dream. He immobilized her. He was about to ...
Eyes
like enormous moons that, when she looked into them, drew her into
their luminescence, blinding her with their ashy vacuousness.
Please
help me someone please help me this is not a dream oh god please...
That
was the moment when the darkness no longer hid in shadows. It was
unleashed.
THE
darkness
had an absurd voice.
It
sounded like a schoolboy who'd just had his ice cream cone stolen by
the big kids on the playground. It was a high-pitched whine. It was
Ric Valente; Elisa had really pricked his pride, no matter how aloof
he thought he was. His cries were so deafening that Elisa wanted to
tell him to shut up or she'd prick him again, or burn his feathers,
because now that she looked closer, he had feathers on his backside
and feelers on his head, and he was moving back and forth on top of
her. Actually, it was a carnivorous chicken of great paleontological
importance, opening its beak and squawking. "But I can't laugh
because this is a nightmare."
Or
at least in part. She'd made love for the first and last time in her
life when she was seventeen. Bernardo was his name. She'd been so
traumatized by the experience that she never wanted to repeat it.
Bernardo had been friendly, sweet, shy, and romantic, but the second
he penetrated her he began firing on all cylinders. He grabbed her
ass, gurgled, grunted, pushed, and foamed at the mouth. She'd gone to
the movies with a human being and found herself in bed with a rabid
dog that just kept stabbing his thing in between her legs and
roaring, "Mmmmfff," "Uuuuff." She really didn't
like it, truth be told. Her vagina burned and she most
definitely
did
not come. When it was over, he shared a cigarette with her and said,
"That was unbelievable." She coughed.
A
couple of months later, on the way back from Valencia, her father was
killed by a drunk driver.
It's
not as though the two things were in any way related. She was sure
tragedy wouldn't strike every time she got laid. But she had no
desire to put it to the test.
So
... how did she end up with that man in her bed? He was much worse
than Bernardo, more ferocious and with worse intuition. She'd once
seen a movie (what was it called again?) in which the protagonist
sleeps with the Devil himself, a being that smelled like sulfur and
had white eyes and (one supposed) an enormous cock. I
know
it's ridiculous but I can't help it, here, now, with this thing on
top of me ... its eyes bright white like lights, and someone who
isn't me (but must be me) screaming their head off, practically
making me go deaf...
She
woke up in the dark. There was no one on top of her, underneath her,
or anywhere else. She wasn't naked. She wore the same T-shirt and
undies she'd worn to bed. And, of course, there was no gaping hole in
the wall. But she hurt inside, and it felt like it had the first
time. She couldn't think about that, though, because there were too
many other disturbing things going on.
There
were no flashes. There were no searchlights on the station, no
station on the island, maybe no island in the sea. Just that awful
wailing sound, a demented howling piercing her eardrums.
An
alarm.
She
sat up, refusing to feel scared, and then she heard voices in the
sound not filled by the vibrating bell. The voices brought fear the
way a breeze brings in the smell of carrion. Screaming in an English
she didn't need to translate in order to understand that something
terrible had happened, because there comes a time in any emergency
when people understand everything they hear without deciphering it.
Catastrophe is multilingual.
She
lunged for the door, thinking that it must be a fire, and almost
crashed straight into a horrifying ghost, white as the X-ray of a
human body pinned to the wall.
"All
the lights have gone out! The lights! All of them! Even my
flashlight!"
It
was true, not even the tiny emergency lights in the hall were on.
They were surrounded by impenetrable darkness. She put an arm around
Nadja's trembling shoulders, trying to console her, and the two of
them ran up the hall, feeling their way together, barefoot.
A
wall kept them from going any farther. They could hear Reinhard
Silberg's voice from beside it, his silhouette outlined in the murky
glow of a flashlight. Standing on tip-toes to see past him, Elisa
could also see Jacqueline Clissot, lit up from underneath, and
Blanes, struggling with the person holding the flashlight (a soldier,
maybe Stevenson) at the door to the hallway that led to the next
barracks. I
want
to get through! You're not allowed! I have a right! I'm telling
you...! I'm the scientific director...!
She
realized Nadja had been shouting something for some time.
"Ric
and Rosalyn aren't in their rooms! Have you seen them?"
She
tried to come up with something longer than no when suddenly it went
quiet. The silence was absolute.
And
then, breaking it, the voice of Marini (in the distance, coming from
the next barracks), relieved: "Damn, it's about time." The
alarm, no longer sounding, was still ringing in Elisa's ears with
such intensity that she didn't realize that someone else was coming
down the hall beside Stevenson. An enormous hand emerged from the
dark, a stony face that confronted Blanes.
"Calm
down, Professor," Carter said without raising his voice.
"Everyone, just calm down. The main generator short-circuited,
and that set off the alarm. That's why the lights went out."
"Well,
why didn't the backup generator kick in?" Silberg asked.
"We
don't know yet."
"Is
all the equipment OK?"
Elisa
would never forget Carter's reply, the way he averted his gaze, his
squared jaw contrasting with the pallor of his cheeks and the way he
lowered his voice.
"The
equipment is, yes."
19
"SORRY,
does
anyone want more tea or coffee? If not, I'm going to take the cups
out to the kitchen."
Mrs.
Ross's voice piped up unexpectedly, as if she were the kind of person
who never spoke up. Elisa noticed that she was the only one eating (a
yogurt, spooning it calmly but ceaselessly into her mouth). She was
sitting at the table and looked better than might be expected, given
not only the circumstances but also the fact that she hadn't had time
to get dressed and put on all the jewelry she normally wore. A short
time earlier, she'd made tea and coffee, passed out cookies like a
practical mother who thinks that breakfast is the essential
ingredient necessary to discuss death.
No
one wanted anything else. After smoothing down her hair, she went
back to her yogurt.
They'd
congregated in the dining room: a collection of pale faces, bags
under their eyes. Marini and Craig weren't there; they were checking
on the accelerator. Jacqueline Clissot, too, was off taking care of
something she was trained to do but had no idea would be required of
her until the tragedy.
"The
way I see it," Carter said, "Miss Reiter must have gotten
up in the middle of the night, walked down to the control room, and
gone into the generator room for some reason. She touched something
she shouldn't have, triggered a short circuit, and ... well, you know
the rest. When the doctor is finished with her examination, we'll
know more. She doesn't have the right tools to do an autopsy, but
she. promised she'd give us a report."
"And
where is Ric Valente?" Blanes asked.
"That's
the second part of the mystery. I don't know yet, Professor. Ask me
again, later."
Silberg
was seated at the table in his pajamas, with the bewildered
expression shared by all very nearsighted people who don't have their
glasses on (he'd left them in his bedroom and still hadn't been
allowed to go back for them), tears streaming down his cheeks. He
held his hands out imploringly and spoke softly.
"The
generator room? Wasn't it locked?"
"Yes,
it was."
"So
how could Rosalyn get in?"
"With
a copy of the key, most likely."
"But
what would Rosalyn want with a copy of the key?" Elisa couldn't
make sense of it, either.
"Just
a minute," Blanes said. "Colin told me that he had to wait
for
you
to
turn off the alarm in the generator room, because you're the only one
with the key. Right?"
"That's
right."
"That
means it was locked from the
outside.
Which
means that Rosalyn was locked
in.
How
could she do that by herself?"
"I
didn't say she did it by herself," Carter conceded, scratching
his graying beard. "Someone locked her in."
That
statement took things to a new level, and gave the situation a whole
different spin. Blanes and Silberg glanced at each other. There was
an uncomfortable silence, which Carter broke.