Whitley Strieber - The Omega Point

Somebody else also knows these things, and they want to escape into the future instead of us, and they are here and they are fighting hard.

I’m exhausted beyond words and I feel sick to see the way this whole affair seems to be going off the rails, but my body has betrayed me with exhaustion, and I’ve got to sleep.

I fall back on the bed. I reach over to the table and take my gun in my hand, and clutch it, holding it over my heart. I close my eyes.

A bright light—very bright—brought David’s eyes flying open. Before he could think, he had leaped out of bed, but it was gone now and he was blinded.

He stood poised at his bedside, his heart thundering, desperate for his vision to return. When it did, he saw a shadowy form between himself and the window. Instinctively, he stepped back. It didn’t move, but he could see in the untidy glow of the auroras that it was something fantastic, feathered, massive, radiating a presence he could actually feel, a kind of immediate, spontaneous joy that made him think of the joy of a child, but also another, more fundamental sense of the rightness and balance even of this terrible time, and he seemed to see a deep secret, that the world rides a wire of balance that man cannot break.

No matter how bad things seem, in some deep living heart, the heart of the universe itself, always, all is well.

It was Quetzalcoatl in all his richness and joy.

The emotions were confusing and powerful and the apparition was so real that he drew away from it—and felt, then, the brush of feathers as the thing came right up to him, its eyes infinite pools of kindness, its soft hands caressing him and, it seemed, dipping into his skin as if it was cream, sliding with a quivering, eerie tension, into him. He twisted, he pulled at it, but it drifted between his fingers like smoke, and kept on entering him until it was entirely inside him. Gradually, the whooshing of its feathers was absorbed in the trembling rumble of his heart.

Gagging, his pulse soaring, sweat and tears pouring off him, he retched, then fell against the edge of his bed, then staggered into the bathroom.

He was heaving over the toilet when a cool hand came under his forehead. Shocked, he jumped back and turned—and there stood Katie in white silk pajamas, her hair loose around her face. He tried to say something but had to return to his vomiting, and she held a damp cloth against his forehead as he struggled.

“Let it come,” she said, “let it be.”

It was, frankly, immeasurably reassuring to feel her holding him and hear the calm in her voice.

Finally, the feeling subsided. He straightened up. “I’m sorry. I—my God, that light! What was that light?”

She gave him a quizzical look. Not for the first time he saw past her job to the woman, noticing the sensuality of her lips and the seductive directness of her eyes. They were not gentle eyes, but frank ones.

She guided him back into the bedroom. “I think you had a nightmare, David.” And also, that was the first time she’d addressed him by anything except “Doctor.” She drew him down to his bedside.

“That light—my God!”

“I didn’t see a light. I heard you yelling.”

“I hope I didn’t wake up the whole house.” The medical staff were all on this floor. He did not need to be embarrassed. He did not need to appear weak.

“Just me and Marian.” She gave him a tentative smile. “I told her I’d handle you.”

“I’ve made a fool of myself.”

“You’ve revealed yourself to be a man under pressure.”

“It was weak and unprofessional and I’m sorry you and Marian had to hear it.”

She ruffled his hair. “Is there anything else?”

There was, he realized. There could be. But then he had a change of heart. That sort of fraternization was just a bit less bad than diddling with patients, especially in an enclosed situation like the Acton Clinic was becoming. Or rather, had become.

“Thanks for helping me, Katie.”

She smiled, he thought, a little sadly. “Not a problem. You’re a lot easier than the patients.”

“I should hope so.”

“Incidentally, if you want to read the paper files, could you please ask me in the future, David? I’d really appreciate that.”

“Of course. I was just curious, Katie.”

“Oh, hey. You do know how to use given names. Everybody’s been wondering.”

As if on impulse, she leaned forward, lifted onto her toes, and brushed his cheek with a kiss. He started to speak, but she held her finger to his lips, then waved it. Then she turned and was gone.

The little intimacy had shot right through him, warm and immediate and comforting. The need he had been feeling for a woman surfaced so intensely that he sprang up in his pajamas.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, he took deep breaths, waiting for the desire to subside. He could probably go across the hall right now and have her. That had been a clear invitation. But no, it was a mistake.

And then he thought, That light was real . But the hallucination that had followed—dear God, the pressure was really getting to him, driving itself deep. That had been Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec god he was identified with in Herbert Acton’s note. Now he was, himself, integrating the imagery into his fantasy life.

Well, here was some pretty obvious psychology: he wanted to identify himself with the compassionate and healing aspect of the dark religion that was obsessing the world, and had long since seduced this place.

He worried about the light. Finally, he called the guard station.

“Did you notice a flash?”

“Yes, Doctor. But we don’t know its origin.”

“The facility is quiet?”

“All secure.”

He padded across his bedroom and gazed out the window. Katie must not have seen it because it had originated on this side of the building.

Standing, watching the grounds pale in the auroral light, he felt a great surge of compassion for this little community whose welfare had been put in his hands.

But then he saw—could that be real? No, it was a trick of light, surely. But then he saw it again, a supple figure moving toward the copse of honey locust that stood between the parking area and the formal gardens behind the house. Was that somebody heading toward the gate?

He watched the trees, their leaves fluttering in the wind. No, he was sure he had seen a woman going toward the gate—a woman in what looked like a hospital gown.

Not a staffer, then. So, a patient. He went back to his phone. “Dr. Ford again. You guys need to light us up, we’ve got somebody on the grounds. A woman. Heading for the main gate.”

“Got it. I’ll alert perimeter and send a team out.”

As David hung up, the night security officer threw the switches that flood-illuminated the entire property.

A moment later, three uniformed guards, guns on their hips, came up from the gatehouse, and two more from the nearest of the new watchtowers that had been installed along the perimeter.

He grabbed the phone again. “I want a patient census. Every room, including the lockdowns.”

“We’re moving.”

Glen he trusted, and his security team was the best money could buy… but, these days, how good was that? He did not want to end up having to call a family that was paying fifty grand a month to keep their patient safe, to tell them that he or she had left care, especially not naked in the middle of the night.

Should he go down and supervise? No, that would send the wrong message. He needed to show his people he had faith in their abilities—or, at the least, to conceal his suspicions. Only if a patient was apprehended would he go down. If it turned out to be a member of the staff, he’d leave the matter to others.