Elizabeth Hand - 12 Monkeys

Cole gazed at her. He felt a slight prickling between his shoulder blades and shivered. After a moment he said, “You were in my dream just now. Your hair—”

She flinched as he reached for her face, but he only brushed back a tangled lock from her forehead. “It was different. But I’m sure it was you.”

Railly nodded, once, then sighed. “We dream about what’s important in our lives. And I seem to have become pretty important in yours.”

Cole’s hand lingered upon her brow. For a moment she thought he was going to free her, but instead he turned and stood, wincing, and limped into the bathroom, stepping between empty fast-food cartons.

Kathryn fought back a wave of despair. “What was the dream about?” she called after him.

In the door to the bathroom he stopped and looked back at her. Once more she was riveted by his eyes, that same guileless, childlike stare. “About an airport,” he said. He lifted his hand and moved it slowly in front of him, like a plane. “Before everything happened. It’s the same dream I always have. I’m a little kid in it.”

Kathryn nodded, angling so that she could push her bound body higher onto the bed. “And I was in it?” she asked, trying to keep an unprofessional note of real curiosity from creeping into her tone. “What did I do?”

Cole stared musingly at the ceiling. “You were very upset.” For a moment his gaze met hers. “You’re always very upset in the dream, but I never knew it was you before.”

Kathryn gave an exasperated moan. “It wasn’t me before, James! It’s become me now , because of — what’s happened. Please untie me,” she pleaded.

Cole shook his head. “No,” he said vaguely, stepping into the bathroom but leaving the door open. “I think it was always you. It’s very strange.”

“You’re flushed,” Kathryn called after him — the psychiatrist taking over for the bound and fearful woman, noting the unhealthy color of Cole’s bruised face, how unnaturally brilliant his eyes were. “Your leg is hurt. And you were moaning. I think you’re running a fever.”

Cole reappeared, rubbing his face with a towel. Without a glance in Kathryn’s direction he tossed the towel on the floor, then retrieved her wallet from where it lay on a nightstand.

“What are you doing?” demanded Kathryn. Cole pulled out several bills, dropped the wallet, and headed for the door.

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

“No! Don’t leave me here like this?” Kathryn thrashed helplessly on the bed as the door closed behind him. Tears spilled from her eyes as the lunchtime news came on, an anchorman gazing at her from the screen with detached concern.

“…and in Fresno, California, news crews continue to attempt to rescue nine-year-old Ricky Neuman…”

“God damn it,” Kathryn moaned, lifting herself only to fall back again.

“…playing ball with four other children when he literally disappeared off the face of the earth. Closer to home, in Baltimore, Kathryn Railly, prominent psychiatrist and the author of a newly released book on insanity, disappeared mysteriously last night after a lecture at the university.”

Kathryn froze. Staring at her from the screen was a mug shot of James Cole from six years ago. The camera had trapped him with his eyes wide and vacant, mouth slightly parted to show a curve of white. Kathryn felt herself go cold, trying to think where she had seen an expression like that before — in a book, once, something she had read in college.

“A former mental patient, James Cole, is wanted for questioning regarding Dr. Railly’s disappearance.”

It came to her suddenly, a shaft of ice thrust down her spine: Helter Skelter . A courtroom photo of Charles Manson, with the same piercingly intense yet empty eyes, the mouth’s same subtle curve that might have been a grimace or a sneer — or worse, a smile.

“…authorities warn that Cole has a history of violence.”

A small sound made her cry aloud. She looked up to see Cole framed in the doorway, his arms filled with bags of potato chips and cans of soda.

“Well,” he said softly, staring at the haunted face filling the TV screen, “I guess it’s time to check out.”

The dusty roads and fields of rural Maryland rolled past as the Cherokee jounced along one back road after another. In the driver’s seat Kathryn sat, stone-faced, fighting exhaustion and hoping that Cole wouldn’t notice. She swatted a lank strand of hair from her eyes and glanced at him in the seat beside her. “Just because we’re on back roads you think the police won’t find us?”

Cole didn’t look up. His finger traced a blue line on the frayed map. “We have to find, uh, Route 121A,” he said absently.

Kathryn grimaced as a stone flew up and pinged the windshield. “Just because you don’t see so many police cars patrolling doesn’t mean they won’t catch us. Sooner or later—”

Cole looked up, a shaft of morning light setting his eyes ablaze. “You still don’t get it, do you?” he said softly. “There isn’t any later .”

He reached for the radio and switched it on. Jangling guitar notes filled the car. “I love music.” His expression was reverent as he set aside the map and reached down beside the seat, pulling out a stack of tattered papers.

Kathryn cast a quick look at the wadded mess. “What are all those?”

“My notes. Observations. Clues.”

“Clues? What kind of clues?”

Cole smoothed out a piece of newsprint covered with scrawled inscriptions. “A secret army,” he said. “The Army of the Twelve Monkeys. I’ve told you about them. They spread the virus. I have to find them. It’s my assignment.”

Right , thought Kathryn, easing the car across a rutted ditch. And I’m Mother Theresa . “What will you do,” she asked cautiously, “when you find this — secret army?”

Cole’s face twisted with frustration. In his hands the worn newspaper tore along one of its many creases. “Nothing! I can’t do anything. I just have to locate them, because they have the virus in its pure state, before it mutates.” His voice took on the grandiose tones of a schoolkid reciting a memorized speech he’s learned to love. “When I locate the virus, they’ll send a scientist back here. The scientist will study the virus, and when he goes back to the present, him and all the other scientists will make a cure . Then all of us in the present, who survived, we’ll be able to go back to the surface of the earth.”

Somewhat breathlessly, Cole looked over at Kathryn, his eyes shining. She stared grimly out the window, her face stony with disbelief. All that pumped-up hope drained from Cole’s eyes. Angrily he turned and glared out the side window, just in time to see a station wagon come barreling out from a long drive beside them. Dad driving, Mom beside him, her face bright with Sunday lipstick. In the backseat, three children in matching flannel jackets scooted over to wave at Cole. He waved back glumly, then turned to Kathryn.

“You won’t think I’m crazy next month. People are going to start dying. At first the people will say it’s some weird fever. Then they’ll begin to catch on. They’ll get it, all right.”

He sat back in his seat, scowling at the radio. His expression froze as the ringing guitar chords died into the sudden hush that presaged an emergency announcement.

“We interrupt this program with a special bulletin. At least fifty police officers from three jurisdictions, apparently including special tactical unit personnel, have been mobilized to control a growing crowd of more than seven hundred onlookers in Fresno, California, where rescue operations for nine-year-old Ricky Neuman continue.”