Justin Cronin - The Twelve

“Christ, another one? What’s the matter with you?”

Now, wasn’t this typical. Wasn’t this typical David. “That’s fine for you to say, gone all day, leaving me stuck in the house. I’d think you’d back me up.”

“Please, don’t do this!” Yolanda wailed.

Lila made a get-this-woman-off-me gesture with her hands. “A little help here?”

Which did not prove quite as easy as it might have. As David (not David) bent to extricate the sobbing Yolanda (not Yolanda) from Lila’s knees, the woman redoubled her hold and commenced, unbelievably, to scream. What a scene she was making! For goodness sake, you’d think being fired from a housekeeping job really was a death sentence from the way she was acting. With a hard yank at the waist, David pulled her free and hoisted her bodily into the air. She kicked and screamed in his arms, flailing like a crazy person. It was only through his superior strength that he managed to contain her. One thing about David: he’d kept himself in shape.

“I’m sorry, Yolanda!” Lila called as he whisked her away. “I’ll mail you a check!”

The door slammed behind them. Lila released a breath she realized she’d been holding in her chest. Well, wasn’t that something. Wasn’t that just about the most uncomfortable business she’d ever had to endure. She felt completely rattled, and not a little guilty besides. Yolanda had been with them for years, and for everything to end so badly. It left a sour taste in Lila’s mouth. Though admittedly, Yolanda had never been the best housekeeper, and recently she’d really let things go. Probably some personal difficulties. Lila had never even been to the woman’s house, though; she knew nothing of her life. How curious was that? All these years, Yolanda coming and going, and it was as if Lila didn’t know the woman at all.

“Well, she’s gone. Congratulations.”

Lila, who had resumed brushing her hair, examined David coolly through the mirror as he paused in the doorway to straighten his tie.

“And how is this my fault, exactly? You saw her. She was completely out of control.”

“That’s the third one this year. Good attendants don’t grow on trees.”

She took another long, luxurious stroke with the brush. “So call the service. It’s really not such a big deal, you know.”

David said nothing more, evidently content to let the matter drop. He moved to the divan, drawing up the knees of his suit pants to sit down.

“We have to talk.”

“Can’t you see I’m busy? Don’t they need you back at the hospital or something?”

“I don’t work at a hospital. We’ve been over this a million times.”

Had they? Sometimes her thoughts were autumn leaves, sometimes they were bees in a jar, little buzzing things going round and round.

“What happened in Texas, Lila?”

“Texas?”

He sighed grumpily. “The convoy. The Oil Road. I thought my instructions were clear.”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about. I’ve never been to Texas in my life.” She paused her brushing, meeting David’s eyes through the mirror. “Brad always hated Texas. Probably you don’t want to hear anything about that, though.”

Her words, she saw, had hit their mark. Bringing up Brad was her secret weapon. Though she knew she shouldn’t, she took a perverse delight in the expression on David’s face whenever she spoke the name—the deflated blankness of a man who knew he could never measure up.

“I don’t ask much of you. What I’m beginning to wonder is if you can control these things anymore.”

“Yes, well.” Buzz, buzz.

“Are you listening to me? We can’t have any more disasters like this. Not when we’re this close.”

“I don’t see what you’re so upset about. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t care for the way you’re speaking to me.”

“Goddamnit, put that fucking brush down !”

But before she could do this, he snatched it from her hand and sent it pinwheeling across the room. He seized her by the hair, yanking her head back, and jammed his face so close to hers it wasn’t even a face but a thing , a monstrous distorted sluglike thing, bathing her with its rotten bacterial breath.

“I’ve had it with your bullshit.” Spittle splashed her cheeks, her eyes; it launched revoltingly from his mouth into hers. The edges of his teeth were etched with a dark substance, giving them a terrifying vividness. Blood. His teeth were lined in blood. “This act of yours. This stupid game.”

“Please,” she gasped, “you’re hurting me!”

“Am I?” He twisted her hair, hard. A thousand pinpoint agonies screamed from her scalp.

“David,” she pleaded, tears drowning her vision, “I’m begging you. Think about what you’re doing.”

The slug face roared in anger: “I’m not David! I’m Horace! My name is Horace Guilder!” Another twisting yank. “Say it!”

“I don’t know, I don’t know! You’re confusing me!”

“Say it! Say my name!”

It was the pain that did it. In a cyclonic rush, her consciousness collapsed upon itself.

“You’re Horace! Please, just stop!”

“Again! All of it!”

“Horace Guilder! You’re Horace Guilder, Director of the Homeland!”

Guilder released her, stepping away. She was lying backward over her dressing table, shaking with sobs. If only she could go back. Go back , she thought, clamping her eyes tight to hide this horror of a man, this Horace Guilder, from her sight. Lila, go back. Send yourself away again . She shook with a nausea that rose from a place so deep it had no name, a sickness not of the body but of the soul, the metaphysical core of her fractured self, and then she was on her knees, vomiting, gasping and choking and spewing the vile blood that she herself had drunk that very morning.

“Okay, then,” said Guilder, wiping his hands on his suit coat. “Just so that’s clear.”

Lila said nothing. So powerful was her longing to will herself away, she couldn’t have formed words if she’d tried.

“Big days ahead, Lila. I need to know that you’re on board. No more of your nonsense. And please, try not to fire any more attendants. These girls don’t grow on trees.”

With the back of her wrist, she wiped the rancid spittle from her chin. “You said that already.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I said, you said that already.” Her voice didn’t even sound like her own. “About attendants not growing on trees.”

“Did I?” He gave a little laugh. “So I did. Funny when you think about it. Something along those lines would sure come in handy, given the exigencies of the food chain and all. I’m sure your pal Lawrence would agree. I tell you, that man can eat .” He paused a moment, enjoying this thought, before his eyes hardened on her again. “Now clean yourself up. No offense, Lila, but you’ve got vomit in your hair.”

“Sara? Can you hear me?”

A voice was floating toward her. A voice and also a face, one she knew but couldn’t place. A face in a dream, which was what she was certain she was having: an unsettling dream in which she was running and all around her were bodies and parts of bodies, and everything on fire.

“She’s still completely out of it,” the voice said. It seemed to reach her across an impossible distance. A continent. An ocean. It seemed to come from the stars. “How much did you use?”

“Three drops. Well, maybe four.”

“ Four ? Were you trying to kill her?”