Guillermo del Toro - The Strain. Book I of The Strain Trilogy

“Dr. Goodweather?”

The old man knew his name. Eph gave him another look, and said, “Do I know you?”

The man spoke with an accent, maybe Slavic. “I saw you on the box. The TV. I knew you would have to come here.”

“You’ve been waiting here for me?”

“What I have to say, Doctor, it is very important. Critical.”

Eph was distracted by the handle on top of the old man’s tall walking stick: a silver wolf’s head. “Well, not now…call my office, make an appointment…” He moved away, dialing rapidly on his cell phone.

The old man appeared anxious, an agitated man striving to speak calmly. He put on his best gentlemanly smile, including Nora in his introduction. “Abraham Setrakian is my name. Which should mean nothing to you.” He gestured, with his walking stick, at the morgue. “You saw them in there. The passengers from the airplane.”

Nora said, “You know something about that?”

“Indeed,” he said, sending a grateful smile her way. Setrakian glanced at the morgue again, like a man who, having waited so long to speak, was uncertain where to start. “You found them not much changed in there, no?”

Eph turned off his cell phone before it rang through. The old man’s words echoed his own irrational fears. “Not changed how?” he said.

“The dead. Bodies not breaking down.”

Eph said, more out of concern than intrigue, “So that is what people are hearing out here?”

“No one had to tell me anything, Doctor. I know.”

“You ‘know,’” said Eph.

“Tell us,” said Nora. “What else do you know?”

The old man cleared his throat. “Have you found a…coffin?”

Eph felt Nora rise up almost three inches off the sidewalk. Eph said, “What did you say?”

“A coffin. If you have it, then you still have him.”

Nora said, “ Him who?”

“Destroy it. Right away. Do not keep it for study. You must destroy the coffin, without delay.”

Nora shook her head. “It’s gone,” she said. “We don’t know where it is.”

Setrakian swallowed with bitter disappointment. “It is as I feared.”

“Why destroy it?” asked Nora.

Eph cut in then, saying to Nora, “If this kind of talk is getting around, people will panic.” He looked at the old man. “Who are you? How did you hear these things?”

“I am a pawnbroker. I heard nothing. These things I know .”

“You know?” said Nora. “How do you know?”

“Please.” He focused on Nora now, the more receptive one. “What I am about to say, I do not say lightly. I say it desperately and with utter honesty. Those bodies in there?” He pointed at the morgue. “I tell you, before this night falls, they must be destroyed.”

“Destroyed?” said Nora, reacting negatively to him for the first time. “Why?”

“I recommend incineration. Cremation. It is simple and sure.”

“That’s him ,” came a voice from the side doors, a morgue official leading a uniformed New York City patrolman toward them. Toward Setrakian.

The old man ignored them, speaking faster now. “Please. It is almost too late.”

“Right there,” said the morgue official, marching over, pointing out Setrakian to the cop. “That’s the guy.”

The cop, amiable and bored, said to Setrakian, “Sir?”

Setrakian ignored him, pleading his case directly to Nora and Eph. “A truce has been broken. An ancient, sacred pact. By a man who is no longer a man, but an abomination. A walking, devouring abomination.”

“Sir,” said the cop. “May I have a word with you, sir?”

Setrakian reached out and grasped Eph’s wrist, to command his attention. “He is here now, here in the New World, this city, this very day. This night. Do you understand? He must be stopped.”

The wool-covered fingers of the old man’s hand were gnarled, claw-like. Eph pulled away from him, not roughly but enough to jostle the old man backward. His walking stick whacked the cop on the shoulder, almost in the face — and suddenly the cop’s disinterest turned to anger.

“Okay, that’s it,” said the cop, twisting the walking stick out of his hands and bracing the old man’s arm. “Let’s go.”

“You must stop him here,” Setrakian continued, being led away.

Nora turned to the morgue official. “What’s this about? What are you doing?”

The official glanced at the laminated identification cards hanging from their necks — the red letters reading CDC — before answering. “He tried to get inside earlier, claiming to be a family member. Insisting on viewing the dead bodies.” The official looked at him being taken away. “Some kind of ghoul.”

The old man continued to plead his case. “Ultraviolet light,” he called over his shoulder. “Go over the bodies with ultraviolet light…”

Eph froze. Had he just heard that?

“Then you will see I am right,” yelled the old man, being folded into the backseat of a cruiser. “Destroy them. Now. Before it is too late…”

Eph watched them slam the door on the old man, the cop climbing behind the wheel and pulling away.

Eph’s call rang through forty minutes late to his, Kelly’s, and Zack’s fifty-minute session with Dr. Inga Kempner, their court-appointed family therapist. He was relieved not to be sitting inside her first-floor office in a prewar brownstone in Astoria, the place where the final custody issues were to be decided.

Eph pled his case through the doctor’s speakerphone. “Let me explain — I’ve been dealing all weekend with the most extreme of circumstances. This dead-airplane situation out at Kennedy. It couldn’t be helped.”

Dr. Kempner said, “This isn’t the first time you’ve failed to present yourself at an appointment.”

“Where’s Zack?” he said.

“Out in the waiting area,” said Dr. Kempner.

She and Kelly had been talking without him. Things had already been decided. It was all over before it had even begun.

“Look, Dr. Kempner — all I ask is that you reschedule our appointment…”

“Dr. Goodweather, I am afraid that—”

“No — wait — please, hold on.” He cut right to it. “Look, am I the perfect father? No, I’m not. I admit that. Points for honesty, right? In fact, I’m not even sure I’d want to be the ‘perfect’ father, and raise some plain vanilla kid who’s not going to make a difference in this world. But I do know that I want to be the best father I can be. Because that is what Zack deserves. And that is my only goal right now.”

“All appearances to the contrary,” said Dr. Kempner.

Eph gave his phone the finger. Nora stood just a few feet away. He felt angry, yet strangely exposed and vulnerable.

“Listen to me,” said Eph, fighting hard to keep his cool. “I know that you know I have rearranged my life around this situation, around Zack. I established this office in New York City specifically so that I could be here, near his mother, so that he would have the benefit of us both. I — usually — have very regular hours during the week, a dependable schedule, with established off-call times. I’m working doubles on weekends in order to have two off for every one I’m on.”

“Did you attend an AA meeting this weekend?”

Eph grew silent. All the air went out of his tires. “Were you even listening?”

“Have you felt the need to drink?”

“No,” he grunted, making a supreme effort to keep his cool. “I’ve been sober twenty-three months, you know that.”

Dr. Kempner said, “Dr. Goodweather, this isn’t a question of who loves your son more. It never is, in these situations. Wonderful, that you both care so much, so deeply. Your dedication to Zack is plainly evident. But, as is so often the case, there seems to be no way to prevent this from turning into a contest. The state of New York issues guidelines I must follow in my recommendation to the judge.”