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

His tolerance for Ann-Marie’s eccentricities was at low ebb. He was dealing with something serious here, and he needed her help, not her added stress. Now he couldn’t be the strong one. He needed her to take charge.

Even the kids were staying away from him, startled by the not-there look in their father’s eyes, or perhaps — he was vaguely aware of this — the odor of his sickness, which to his nose resembled the smell of congealed cooking grease stored too long in a tin can rusting beneath the sink. He saw them from time to time hiding behind the balusters at the bottom of the staircase, watching him cross the second-floor landing. He wanted to allay their fears, but worried he might lose his temper trying to explain this to them, and in doing so make things worse. The surest way to set their minds at ease was to get better. To outlast this surge of disorientation and pain.

He stopped inside his daughter’s bedroom, found the purple walls too purple, then doubled back into the hallway. He stood very still on the landing — as still as he could — until he could hear it again. That thumping. A beating — quiet and close. Wholly separate from the headache pounding in his skull. Almost…like in small-town movie theaters, where you can hear, during quiet moments in movies, the clicking of the film running through the projector in the back. Which distracts you, and keeps pulling you back to the reality that this is not real , as though you and you alone realize this truth.

He shook his head hard, grimacing from the pain that went with it…trying to use that pain like bleach, to clean his thoughts…but the thumping. The throbbing . It was everywhere, all around him.

The dogs too. Acting strange around him. Pap and Gertie, the big, bumbling Saint Bernards. Growling as they would when some strange animal came into the yard.

Ann-Marie came up later, alone, finding him sitting at the foot of their bed, his head in his hands like a fragile egg. “You should sleep,” she said.

He gripped his hair like the reins of a mad horse and fought down the urge to berate her. Something was wrong in his throat, and whenever he lay down for any length of time, his epiglottis seized up, cutting off his airway, suffocating him until he choked himself back to breathing. He was terrified now of dying in his sleep.

“What do I do?” she asked, remaining in the doorway, her palm and fingers pressing against her own forehead.

“Get me some water,” he said. His voice hissed through his raw throat, burning like steam. “Lukewarm. Dissolve some Advil in it, ibuprofen — anything.”

She didn’t move. She stood there staring, worrying. “Aren’t you even a little better…?”

Her timidity, which normally aroused strong protective instincts in him, now moved him only to rage. “Ann-Marie, get me some goddamn water, and then take the kids outside or something but keep them the hell away from me !”

She scurried away in tears.

When Ansel heard them go outside into the darkened backyard, he ventured downstairs, walking with one hand clamped on the handrail. She had left the glass on the counter next to the sink, set on a folded napkin, dissolved pills clouding the water. He brought the glass to his lips two-handedly and forced himself to drink. He poured the water into his mouth, giving his throat no choice but to swallow. He got some of it down before gagging on the rest of the contents, coughing onto the sink window overlooking the backyard. He gasped as he watched the splatter drip down the glass pane, distorting his view of Ann-Marie standing behind the kids on the swings, staring off into the darkened sky, breaking her crossed arms only occasionally to push low-swinging Haily.

The glass slipped from his hand, spilling into the sink. He left the kitchen for the living room, dropping onto the sofa there in a kind of a stupor. His throat was engorged and he felt sicker than ever.

He had to return to the hospital. Ann-Marie would just have to make it on her own for a little while. She could do it if she had no choice. Maybe it would even end up being good for her…

He tried to focus, to determine what needed to be done before he left. Gertie came into the doorway, panting softly. Pap entered behind her, stopping near the fireplace, settling down into a crouch. Pap started a low, even growl, and the thumping noise surged in Ansel’s ears. And Ansel realized: the noise was coming from them.

Or was it? He got down off the sofa, moving over toward Pap on his hands and knees, getting closer to hear. Gertie whimpered and retreated to the wall, but Pap held his unrelaxed crouch. The growl intensified in the dog’s throat, Ansel grasping his collar just as the dog tried to back up onto its feet and get away.

Thrum…Thrum…Thrum…

It was in them. Somehow. Somewhere. Some thing .

Pap was pulling and whimpering, but Ansel, a big man who rarely had to use his strength, curled his free arm around the Saint Bernard’s neck, holding him in a canine headlock. He pressed his ear to the dog’s neck, the hair of its fur tickling the inside of his auditory canal.

Yes. A thrumming pulse. Was it the animal’s circulating blood?

That was the noise. The yelping dog strained to get away, but Ansel pressed his ear harder against the dog’s neck, needing to know.

“Ansel?”

He turned fast — too fast, a blinding shot of white pain — and saw Ann-Marie at the door, Benjy and Haily behind her. Haily was hugging her mother’s leg, the boy standing alone, both of them staring. Ansel’s grip relaxed and the dog pulled away.

Ansel was still on his knees. “What do you want?” he yelled.

Ann-Marie stayed frozen in the doorway, in a trance of fear. “I’m…I don’t…I’m taking them for a walk.”

“Fine,” he said. He wilted a little under the gaze of his children, another choke from his throat making him rasp. “Daddy’s fine,” he told them, wiping off spit with the back of his hand. “Daddy’s going to be fine.”

He turned his head toward the kitchen, where the dogs were. All the make-nice thoughts faded under the resurgent thrumming. Louder than before. Pulsating.

Them.

A nauseous shame rose up within him, and he shuddered, then put a fist to his temple.

Ann-Marie said, “I’ll let the dogs out.”

“No! ” He caught himself, holding out an open palm to her from where he knelt on the living room floor. “No,” he said, more evenly. He tried to catch his breath, to seem normal. “They’re fine. Leave them in.”

She hesitated, wanting to say more. To do something, anything. But in the end, she turned and went out, pulling Benjy after her.

Ansel used the wall to get to his feet and walk to the first-floor bathroom. He pulled the string light on over the mirror, wanting to stare into his own eyes. Glowering, red-veined eggs of sallow ivory. He swiped perspiration from his forehead and upper lip and opened his mouth to try and look down his own throat. He expected to see inflamed tonsils, or some kind of white-bump rash, but it only looked dark. It hurt to raise his tongue, but he did, looking underneath. The pad beneath was scarlet and sore, and angry red, glowing hot the way a charcoal glows. He touched it and the pain was brain-splittingly raw, riding out along both sides of his jaw, straining the cords in his neck. His throat bucked in protest, issuing a harsh, barking cough that hacked dark specks onto the mirror. Blood, mixed with something white, maybe phlegm. Some spots were closer to black than others, as though he had brought up some solid residue, like rotten bits of himself. He reached for one of those dark nuggets, smearing the chunk off the glass and onto the tip of his middle finger. He brought it to his nose, sniffing it, then rubbed it with his thumb. It was like a discolored clot of blood. He brought it to the tip of his tongue, and before he knew it, he was tasting it. He swirled the small, soft mass inside his mouth, and then, once it dissipated, swiped another spot off the glass, tasting that one too. Not much taste, but there was something about the sensation on his tongue that was almost healing.