Justin Cronin - The Twelve

He blasted around the final corner; ahead, a shaft of golden daylight showed the way. Kittridge hit the ramp doing seventy miles an hour, still accelerating. The exit was sealed by a metal grate, but this fact seemed meager, no obstacle at all. Kittridge took aim, plunged the pedal to the floor, and ducked.

A furious crash; for two full seconds, an eternity in miniature, the Ferrari went airborne. It rocketed into the sunshine, concussing the pavement with a bone-jarring bang, sparks flying from the undercarriage. Freedom at last, but now he had another problem: there was nothing to stop him. He was going to careen into the lobby of the bank across the street. As Kittridge bounced across the median, he stamped the brake and swerved to the left, bracing for the impact. But there was no need; with a screech of smoking rubber, the tires bit and held, and the next thing Kittridge knew he was flying down the avenue, into the spring morning.

He had to admit it. What had Warren’s exact words been? You should feel the way she handles .

It was true. Kittridge had never driven anything like it in his life.

For a time, a long time, which was no time at all, the man known as Lawrence Grey—former inmate of Beeville Men’s Correctional Facility and registered sex offender of the Texas Department of Public Safety; civilian employee of Project NOAH and the Division of Special Weapons; Grey the Source, the Unleasher of Night, Familiar of the One Called Zero—was nowhere at all. He was nothing and no place, a being annihilated, possessing neither memory nor history, his consciousness dispersed across a shoreless sea of no dimension. A wide, dark sea of voices, murmuring his name. Grey, Grey . They were there and not there, calling to him as he floated alone, one with the darkness, adrift in an ocean of forever; and all above, the stars.

But not just the stars. For now had come a light—a soft, golden light that swelled above his face. Blades of shadow moved across it, gyring like a pinwheel, and with this light a sound: aortal, heartlike, a thrum-thrum-thrum that pulsed to the rhythm of its turning. Grey watched it, this wonderful, gyring light; and the thought crept into his consciousness that what he beheld was God. The light was God in his heaven above, moving over the waters, brushing the face of the world like the hem of a curtain, touching and blessing his creation. The knowledge blossomed inside Grey in a burst of sweetness. Such joy! Such understanding and forgiveness! The light was God and God was love; Grey had only to enter it, to go into the light, to feel that love forever. And a voice said:

It’s time, Grey .

Come to me .

He felt himself rising, lifted up. He rose and as he rose the sky spread its wings, receiving him, carrying him into the light, which was almost too much to bear and then was: a brightness blinding and obliterating, like the sound of a scream that was his own.

Grey, ascending. Grey, reborn.

Open your eyes, Grey .

He did; he opened his eyes. His vision crawled into focus. A dark form was whirling unpleasantly above his face.

It was a ceiling fan.

He blinked the grime away. A bitter taste, like wet ashes, painted the walls of his mouth. The room where he lay possessed the unmistakable sense of a chain motel—the scratchy coverlet and cheap foam pillow, the cratered mattress below and popcorn ceiling above, the smell of recycled, overused air in his nostrils. His brain felt as empty as a leaky pail, his body a shapeless mass, vague as gelatin. Even to move his head seemed to require a feat of strength beyond his power. The room was lit with a sticky yellow daylight filtered through the drapes. Above his face, the fan spun and spun, rocking on its bracket, its worn-out bearings rhythmically creaking. The sight was as abrasive to his senses as smelling salts, and yet he could not look away. (And wasn’t there something about a thrumming sound, something in a dream? A brilliant light, lifting him up? But he no longer recalled.)

“Good, you’re awake.”

Sitting on the edge of the second bed, eyes downcast, was a man. A small, soft man, filling out his jumpsuit like a sausage in its casing. One of the civilian employees of Project NOAH, known as sweeps: men like Grey whose job it was to clean up the piss and shit and back up the drives and watch the sticks for hours and hours, slowly going loony; sex offenders to a one, despised and forgotten, men without histories anyone cared to remember, their bodies softened by hormones, their minds and spirits as neutered as a spayed dog.

“I thought the fan would do it. Tell you the truth, I can’t even look at the thing.”

Grey tried to respond but couldn’t. His tongue felt toasted, as if he’d smoked a billion cigarettes. His vision had gone all watery again; his goddamned head was splitting. It had been years since he’d drunk more than a couple of beers at a time—with the drugs, you were too sleepy and pretty much lost interest in everything—but Grey remembered what a hangover was. That’s how this felt. Like the worst hangover in the world.

“What’s the matter, Grey? Cat got your tongue?” The man chuckled at some private joke. “That’s funny, you know. Under the circumstances. I could go for a little cat tartare right now.” He turned toward Grey, his eyebrows arcing. “Don’t look so shocked. You’ll see what I mean. Takes a few days but then it kicks in, real hard.”

Grey remembered the man’s name: Ignacio. Though the Ignacio that Grey remembered was older, more worn-down, with a heavy, creased brow and pores you could park a car in and jowls that sagged like a bassett hound’s. This Ignacio was in the pink of health—literally pink , his cheeks rouged with color, skin baby smooth, eyes twinkling like zircs. Even his hair looked younger. But there was no mistaking who it was, on account of the tat—prison ink, blurred and bluish, a hooded snake rising up his neck from the open collar of his jumpsuit.

“Where am I?”

“You’re a regular riot, you know that? We’re at the Red Roof.”

“The what?”

He made a little snort. “The fucking Red Roof, Grey. What did you think, they’d send us to the Ritz?”

They ? Grey thought. Who were they ? And what did Ignacio mean by “send”? Send for what purpose? Which was the moment Grey noticed that Ignacio was clutching something in his hand. A pistol?

“Iggy? What are you doing with that thing?”

Ignacio lazily raised the gun, a long-barreled .45, frowning at it. “Not much, apparently.” He angled his head toward the door. “Those other guys were here for a while, too. But they’re all gone now.”

“What guys?”

“Come on, Grey. You know those guys. The skinny one, George. Eddie whatzisname. Jude, with the ponytail.” He looked past Grey toward the curtains. “Tell you the truth, I never did like him. I heard about the stuff he did, not that I’m anyone to talk. But that man, he was flat-out disgusting.”

Ignacio was talking about the other sweeps. What were they all doing here? What was he doing here? The gun wasn’t a good sign, but Grey couldn’t call up a single memory of how he’d come to be where he was. The last thing he recalled was eating dinner in the compound cafeteria: beef bourguignon in a rich gravy, with a side of scalloped potatoes and green beans and a Cherry Coke to wash it all down. It was his favorite meal; he always looked forward to beef bourguignon. Though as he thought about it, its greasy taste, his stomach clamped with nausea. A squirt of bile shot up his throat. He had to take a moment just to breathe.