Justin Cronin - The Twelve

When he slid the pillow from beneath his father’s head, the man’s eyes fluttered but didn’t open. Here was the precipice, Guilder thought, the mortal moment; the deed, that, once done, could never be undone. He thought of the word patricide . From the Latin pater , father, and caedere , to cut down. He had lacked the courage to kill himself, yet as he placed the pillow over his father’s face, he experienced no hesitation. Gripping the pillow by the edges, he increased the pressure until he was certain no air could reach his father’s nose or mouth. A minute crept by, Guilder counting out the seconds under his breath. His father’s hand, lying on the blanket, gave a restive twitch. How long would it take? How would he know when it was over? If the pillow didn’t work, what then? He watched his father’s hand for additional movement, but there was none. Gradually it came to him that the stillness of the body beneath his hands meant only one thing. His father wasn’t breathing anymore.

He drew the pillow away. His father’s face was just the same; it was as if his passage into death represented only the subtlest alteration in his condition. Guilder gently placed his palm beneath his father’s head and moved the pillow back into place. He wasn’t trying to hide his crime—he doubted anybody would be around to examine the situation—but he wanted his father to have a pillow to lie on, especially since, as now seemed likely, he would be lying there for a very long time. Guilder had expected a rush of emotion to overcome him at this moment, all the pain and regret unloosed inside him. His awful childhood. His mother’s lonely life. His own barren and loveless existence, with only a hired woman for company. But all he felt was relieved. The truest test of his life, and he had passed it.

Outside, the hallway was quiet, unchanged. Who could say what degradations lay behind the other doors, how many families would be facing the same cruel decision? Guilder glanced at his watch: ten minutes had passed since he’d entered the building. Just ten minutes, but everything was different now. He was different, the world was different. His father was nowhere in it. And with that, tears came to his eyes.

He strode briskly down the hallway, moving past the empty common room and the vacant nurse’s station and farther still, into the early morning.

It was late on the second day, approaching the Missouri border, that Grey saw an obstruction ahead. They were in the middle of nowhere, miles from any town. He brought the car to a halt.

Lila looked up from the magazine she was reading: Today’s Parenting . Grey had gotten it for her at a mini-mart in Ledeau, with a pile of others. Family Life, Baby and Child, Modern Toddler . In the last day, her attitude toward him had shifted somewhat. Perhaps it was the mental effort of maintaining the fiction that their journey was nothing out of the ordinary, but she was becoming increasingly impatient with him, speaking to him as if he were an uncooperative husband.

“Will you look at that.” She dropped the magazine to her lap. On the cover was the image of a ruddy-cheeked girl in a pink jumper. WHEN PLAY DATES GO BAD, the caption read. “What is that?”

“I think it’s a tank.”

“What’s it doing there?”

“Maybe it’s lost or something.”

“I don’t think they just lose tanks, Lawrence. Like, excuse me, have you seen my tank anyplace? I know it was around here somewhere.” She sighed heavily. “Who just parks a tank in the road like that? They’ll have to move it.”

“So you’re saying you want me to ask them,” Grey stated.

“Yes, Lawrence. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

He didn’t want to, but to say no seemed impossible. He exited the car into the falling dusk. “Hello?” he called. He glanced back at Lila, who was watching him with her head angled through the open passenger window. “I think it’s empty.”

“Maybe they just can’t hear you.”

“Let’s just turn around. We can find another road.”

“It’s the principle of the thing. They can’t just block the road like that. Try the hatch. I’m sure there has to be somebody inside.”

Grey doubted this, but he didn’t want to argue. He clambered up on the exposed treads and hoisted himself to the top of the turret. He positioned his face above the hatch, but it was too dark to see anything down there. Lila had exited the Volvo and was standing at the base of the tank, holding a flashlight.

“I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” Grey said.

“It’s just a tank, Lawrence. Honestly. Sometimes you men are all the same, you know that?”

She passed him the flashlight. There was nothing to do now but look inside. Grey pointed the beam through the hatch.

Jesus fuck.

“So? What’s down there?”

Grey guessed there had probably been two of them. It wasn’t the easiest thing to sort out, visually. It looked like somebody had dropped a grenade, that’s how torn up the soldiers were. But it wasn’t a grenade.

Do you see, Grey?

He startled, as if hit by a jolt of current. The voice. Not like the one in the garage; the voice was in his head. The voice of Zero. Lila was staring at him from the base of the tank. He tried to say something, to warn her, but no words would leave his mouth.

Are you… hungry, Grey?

He was. Not just hungry: famished. The sensation seemed to take hold of every part of him, each cell and molecule, the tiniest atoms whirring inside him. Never in his life had he felt a hunger so profound.

It is my gift to you. The gift of blood .

“Lawrence, what’s the matter?”

He swallowed. “I’ll be… just a sec.”

Down the hole he went. He had dropped his flashlight, but that didn’t matter; the tank’s dark interior was bright to his eyes, each surface glowing with its beautiful coating of blood. A titanic need seized him, and he pushed his face against the cold metal to drag his tongue along it.

“Lawrence! What are you doing in there?”

He was on his hands and knees now, licking the floor, burying his face in the syrupy remains. So wonderful! As if he hadn’t eaten for a year, a decade, a century, only to be presented with the richest banquet in the history of the world! All the joys of the body rolled into one, a trance of purest pleasure!

The spell was broken by a violent boom. His fingers were in his mouth; his face was covered in blood. What the hell was he doing? And what was that sound, like thunder?

“Lawrence! Come quick!”

Another boom, louder than the first. He scrambled up the ladder. Something was wrong with the sky; everything seemed lit by a fiery glow.

Lila took one look at his bloody face and began to scream.

A pair of jets roared low overhead, splitting the air with their velocity; a violent white sheen lit the sky, and Grey was slapped by a wall of heated air that knocked him off the roof of the tank. He landed hard, the wind sailing out of him. More planes shot past, the sky to the east flashing with light.

Lila was backing away from him, her hands held protectively before her face. “Get away from me!”

There was no time to explain, and what would he have said? It was clear what was happening now, they had wandered into the war. Grey grabbed her by the arm and began to drag her to the car. She was kicking, screaming, thrashing in his grip. Somehow he managed to open the passenger door and shove her in, but then he realized his mistake: the instant he closed the door, Lila hit the locks.