Justin Cronin - The Twelve

Ignacio gave his pistol a halfhearted wave toward the door. “Look yourself if you want. But I’m pretty sure they’re gone.”

Grey swallowed. “Gone where?”

“That depends. Wherever they’re supposed to go.”

Grey felt totally at sea. He couldn’t even figure out what questions to ask. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t like the answers, though. Maybe the best thing was to lie quietly. He hoped he hadn’t done something terrible, like in the old days. The days of the Old Grey.

“Well,” Ignacio said, and cleared his throat, “as long as you’re awake, I guess I better be moving on. I’ve got a long walk ahead of me.” He rose and held out the gun. “Here.”

Grey hesitated. “What do I want a gun for?”

“In case you feel like, you know, shooting yourself.”

Grey was too stunned to reply. The last thing he wanted was a gun. Somebody found a gun on him, they’d send him back to prison for sure. When he made no move to accept the weapon, Ignacio placed it on the bedside table.

“Give it some thought, anyway. Just don’t drag your feet like I did. It gets harder the longer you wait. Now look at the fix I’m in.”

Ignacio moved to the door, where he turned to cast his gaze a final time around the room.

“We really did it. In case you were, you know, wondering.” He took a long breath, blowing out the air with puffed cheeks, and angled his face toward the ceiling. “Funny thing is, I really don’t see what I did to deserve this. I wasn’t so bad, not really. I didn’t mean to do half those things. It was just the way I was built.” He looked at Grey again; his eyes were filmed with tears. “That’s what the shrink always said. Ignacio, it’s just the way you’re built.”

Grey had no idea what to say. Sometimes there was nothing, and he guessed this was one of those times. The look on Ignacio’s face reminded him of some of the cons he’d known in Beeville, men who’d been inside so long they were like zombies in some old movie. Men with nothing but the past to dwell on and, ahead, an endless stretch of nothing.

“Well, fuck it.” Ignacio sniffled and rubbed his nose with the back of his wrist. “No use complaining about it now. You make your bed you have to lie in it. Think about what I said, okay? Be seeing you, Grey.” And with a wash of light from the open door, he was gone.

What to make of that? For a long time Grey lay still, his mind spinning like a bald tire on ice. Part of him wasn’t sure if he was awake or still sleeping. He reviewed the facts to give his mind a point to fix on. He was on a bed. The bed was in a motel, a Red Roof. The motel was somewhere in Colorado, probably, assuming he hadn’t gone far. The light in the windows said morning. He didn’t appear to be injured. Sometime in the last twenty-four hours, maybe more and maybe less, but probably not more than a day, he’d blacked out.

He’d have to go from there.

He drew himself up on his elbows. The room reeked of sweat and smoke. His jumpsuit was stained and torn at the knees; his feet were bare. He gave his toes a wiggle, the joints cracking and popping. Everything seemed to be working.

And come to think of it, wasn’t it true that he was feeling better? And not just better—a lot better. The headache and dizziness were gone. His vision had cleared. His limbs felt firm and strong, full of fresh, coiled energy. His mouth still tasted foul—finding a toothbrush or a pack of gum was job one—but other than that, Grey felt right as rain.

He swiveled his feet to the floor. The room was small, just space enough for the beds, with their brown-and-orange coverlets, and a little table with a television. But when he picked up the remote to turn it on, all he got was a blue screen with a sound like a dial tone. He flipped through the channels; the network affiliates, CNN, the War Channel, GOVTV—all were blued out. Well, didn’t that just figure. He’d have to tell the manager about that. Though as far as he recalled he hadn’t paid for the room, and his wallet had been confiscated months ago, when he’d first arrived at the compound.

The compound , Grey thought, the word dropping to his gut like a rock. Whatever else was true, he was in a heap of trouble. You didn’t just up and leave. He remembered Jack and Sam, the two sweeps who’d gone AWOL, and how pissed off Richards had been. Who was not somebody you wanted to piss off, to put it mildly. Just a glance from the man made Grey’s bowels twist.

Maybe that’s why the sweeps had all run off. Maybe it was Richards they were afraid of.

His thirst hit him then—a mad, crazy thirst, like he hadn’t had a drink in days. In the bathroom he jammed his face under the tap, gulping fiercely, letting the water stream over his face. Slow down, Grey, he thought, you’re going to make yourself sick if you drink like this.

Too late; the water hit his stomach like a crashing wave, and the next thing he knew he was on his knees, clutching the sides of the toilet bowl, all the water coming up.

Well, that was dumb. He had no one to blame but himself. He stayed on his knees a moment, waiting for the cramping to pass, breathing in the stink of his own vomit—mostly water, but in the final instance a gooey, yolk-like glob, no doubt the undigested remnants of the beef bourguignon. He must have strained something, too, because his ears were ringing: a faint, nearly subaural whine, like the sound of a tiny motor whirring deep inside his skull.

He struggled to his feet and flushed the puke away. On the vanity he saw a little bottle of mouthwash in a tray with soaps and lotions, none of it touched, and he took a swig to clear the taste in his mouth, gargling long and hard and spitting into the sink. Then he looked at his face in the mirror.

Grey’s first thought was that somebody was playing a joke on him: an elaborate, unfunny, improbable joke, in which the mirror had somehow been replaced by a window, and on the far side stood a man—a much younger, better-looking man. The urge to reach out and touch this image was so strong he actually did it, the man in the mirror perfectly mimicking his movements. What the fuck? Grey thought, and then he said it: “What the fuck?” The face he beheld was slim, clear-skinned, attractive. His hair brushed over his ears in a lush mane, its tone a rich chestnut. His eyes were clear and bright; they actually sparkled. Never in his life had Grey looked so good.

Something else drew his eye. Some sort of mark on his neck. He leaned forward, tilting his head upward. Two lines of symmetrical beadlike depressions, roughly circular in their arrangement, the top of the circle reaching to his jawline, the bottom skimming the curve of his collarbone. The wound had a pinkish color, as if only lately healed. When the hell had this happened? As a kid he’d been bitten by a dog once; that was what this looked like. A surly old mutt-dog from the pound, but still he’d loved it, it was something that was his, until the day he’d bitten Grey on the hand—no good reason for it; Grey had only meant to give him a biscuit—and his father had dragged him to the yard. Two shots, Grey recalled that clearly, the first followed by a yelping squeal, the second dimming the dog forever into silence. The dog’s name was Buster. Grey hadn’t given him a thought in years.

But this thing on his neck. Where had it come from? There was something familiar about it—a feeling of déjà vu, as if the recollection had been stored in the wrong drawer in his mind.

Grey, don’t you know?

Grey spun from the mirror.

“Iggy?”

Silence. He returned to the bedroom. He opened the closet, knelt to look beneath the beds. No one.

Grey. Grey .

“Iggy, where are you? Quit fucking with me.”