Justin Cronin - The Twelve

The time for leaving was at hand; they’d stayed too long as it was. They gathered their gear and zipped up their parkas, bracing themselves for the blast of frigid air that would assail them the second they stepped through the door.

“Six days if the weather holds,” said Tifty, hitching up his pack. “Seven at the most.”

“Why do I wish it were more?” said Lore.

Grey. Grey .

His eyes popped open.

Can you feel them, Grey?

“Who’s there? Guilder, is that you?”

I’m sorry I have been away. You are still my favorite, Grey. Since the very first day we met. Do you remember?

His stomach clenched: the voice of Zero.

“Stop it.” His wrists yanked reflexively at the chains. He was lying in his own filth, his body stank, his mouth tasted permanently of blood. “Go away. Leave me alone.”

You told me everything about yourself. You didn’t even know you were doing it. Did you feel me in your mind even then?

—Get out, he thought. Get out get out get out. Wake up, Grey.

Oh, you’re not sleeping. I’ve always been here. Even as you have lain in chains a hundred years, I have lain with you. Like the story of Job, who lay in the ashes, cursing his fate. God tested him, as I have tested you .

—I don’t know you. I don’t know what you are.

You don’t, Grey? How can you not know? I am the God who abides with you. The one true God of Grey. Can you not feel my love? Can you not feel my wings of love spreading over you, forever and ever?

He had begun to weep.

—Let me die. Please. All I want to do is die.

You love her, don’t you, Grey?

He swallowed, tasting the foulness of his mouth. His body was a cave of filth and rottenness.

—Yes.

The woman. Lila. She means everything to you .

—Yes.

Yours is the blood that flows in her veins, as mine flows in yours. Do you see? Do you understand? We are all of a piece, Grey. You lie in chains, but you are not alone. The God of Grey abides with you. The God of all that is, and all that is to come. The God of the next new world. There will be a special place for you in that world, Grey .

—The next new world.

They are coming, Grey .

—Who? Who is coming?

But even as he asked the question, he knew.

Our brothers .

And suddenly, she was free. Alicia Donadio, Last of the First, the New Thing and captain of the Expeditionary, was bounding over the wires, into the night, away.

She ran. She ran and kept on running.

She’d killed a few men along the way. Some women, too. Alicia had never killed a human woman before; it seemed not so very different, on the whole. Because in the end, everybody left their life in the same manner. The same surprise upon their faces, their fingers touching the wound with exploratory tenderness, the identical ethereal gaze, aimed into eternity. There was a certain grace to it.

Maybe that’s why Alicia liked it as much as she did.

She found her gear where she’d left it hidden in the brush. A pike and cross. The RDF. Her bandoliers of blades. A change of clothes, a blanket, shoes. A hundred rounds of ammo but no gun to fire it. She’d left Sod’s knife behind, embedded in the left kidney of a man who had commanded her to stop, as if she might actually do this. Racing from the detention center, she hadn’t even known if it would be day or night. Time had been annihilated. The world she found was a changed place. No, that wasn’t right. The world was the same; it was she who had changed. She felt apart from everything, spectral, almost bodiless. Above her the winter stars shone hard and pure, like chips of ice. She needed shelter. She needed sleep. She needed to forget.

She took refuge in a shed that at one time might have contained chickens. Half the roof was gone; only the barest form remained: a single wall left standing, the little cages encrusted with fossilized droppings, a floor of hard-packed earth. She wrapped herself in the blanket, her broken body shaking with the cold. Louise , she thought, was it like this? Her mind tossed with memories, bright flashes of torment that split her thoughts like lightning. When would it stop, when would it stop.

It was still dark when she awoke, her mind climbing slowly to awareness. Something warm was brushing the back of her neck. She rolled and opened her eyes to discover an immense dark form looming above her.

My good boy, she thought, and then she said it: “My good, good boy.” Soldier dipped his face to hers, his great nostrils flaring, bathing her face with his breath. He licked her eyes and cheeks with his long tongue. It was a miracle. There was no other word. Someone had come. Someone had come, after all. Alicia had longed for this without knowing it, one soul to comfort her in this comfortless world.

Then, stepping improbably from the gloom, a figure, and a woman’s voice, strange and familiar at once:

“Alicia. Hello.”

The woman crouched before her, drawing down the hood of her long, wool coat. Her long black tresses tumbled free.

“It’s all right,” she said softly. “I’m here now.”

Amy? But it was not the Amy she knew.

This Amy was a woman.

A strong, beautiful woman with thick, dark hair and eyes like windowpanes lit from behind with golden light. The same face but different, deeper; the impression was one of completeness, a coming into the self. A face, thought Alicia, of wisdom. Her beauty was more than appearance, more than a collection of physical details; it came from the whole.

“I don’t… understand.”

“Shhhh.” She took Alicia’s hand. Her touch was firm but tender, like a mother’s, comforting her child. “Your friend. He showed us where you were. Such a handsome horse. What do you call him?”

Her mind felt heavy, benumbed. “Soldier.”

Amy cupped Alicia’s chin and lifted it slightly. “You’re hurt.”

How was this possible? How was anything possible? Beyond the shed Alicia saw a second figure, holding a pair of horses by the reins. A windblown swirl of white hair and a great pale beard masked his features. But it was the way he held himself, with a soldier’s bearing, that told Alicia who he was; that this man in the snow was Lucius Greer.

“What did they do to you?” Amy whispered. “Tell me.”

That was all it took. Her will collapsed, a wave of sorrow came undammed inside her. She did not speak so much as shudder the word: “Everything.”

And at long last, a great sob shook her—a howl of purest pain and grief cast skyward to the winter stars—and in Amy’s arms, Alicia began to weep.

Guilder. It’s time .

Guilder, rise .

But Guilder did not hear these words. Director Horace Guilder was asleep and dreaming—a terrible, oft-repeated dream in which he was in the convalescent center, smothering his father with a pillow. Contrary to history, this did not proceed without a struggle. His father thrashed and flailed, his hands clawing at the air, fighting to break free as he issued muffled cries for mercy. Only when his resistance ceased, and Guilder removed the pillow from his face, did Guilder see his error. It wasn’t his father he had killed, but Shawna. Oh, God, no! Then Shawna’s eyes popped open; she began to laugh. She laughed so hard that tears came to her eyes. Stop laughing! he yelled. Stop laughing at me! Guilder, she said, you’re so funny. You should see the look on your face. You and your crappy bracelet. Your mother was a whore. A whore a whore a whore …