F. Paul Wilson - Ground Zero

“The cop from Manhattan?”

“Yes. He’d given me his cell number and said to call him any time day or night if I ever remembered anything. I didn’t know what else to do, so I called him.”

Jack winced and shook his head. “Big mistake.”

“I know that now, but I had no one else to turn to, and I had to tell somebody. I told him I’d got my memory back. He said to write it all down in case I forgot again and he’d be right over to take a statement. Ten minutes later four men busted in and knocked me down. They held a funny-smelling cloth over my face and that was it—I was gone.”

Jack nodded. “And then they torched the place. You’d be found burnt to a crisp with no sign of injury or foul play.”

“I guess so, but I woke up with the house burning around me. Maybe the drugs I was on interfered with whatever they doped me with, I don’t know. I got up and ran to the bedroom but it was like a furnace and I could see Marilyn in the bed, burnt.” He blinked, swallowed. “She never had a chance.”

“So you ran.”

He looked at Jack. “What else could I do? I—”

“No criticism. You did the smart thing.”

“As far as I could see, it was the only thing. I realized then that Volkman was a fake and that someone—a bunch of someones—didn’t want me talking about what I’d seen at Ground Zero. If I showed my face, they’d only come after me again. I figured it would take a while to put out the fire and sift though all the ashes. Everyone would assume I was dead until they couldn’t find my body. So I hid until my bank opened. I withdrew all I could in cash and hopped a Greyhound.”

“Why L.A.?”

“It was as far as I could get from that thing at Ground Zero without buying a plane ticket. Plus I figured it would be easy to get lost in a big city like this. And it was . . . until you came along.”

“Tell your daughter to ditch her Wi-Fi or I might not be the last. How’d you convince her you had nothing to do with it?”

“She knows me, she believed me. She knew I could never hurt her mother.”

Jack couldn’t think of anything else to ask him.

“Well, I guess that’s it then. Let’s get back up to the parking area. You’ve got to get to work and I’ve got to get back and make my report.”

He figured that sounded pretty official.

“Who do you work for?” Goren said. “I’ve got to know.”

Jack shook his head. “You don’t want to know. If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

Goren blanched and backed up a step.

“Only kidding.”

5

Ernst jumped as Hank Thompson slammed open the door and stormed into his office.

“Have you been downstairs yet?” he said through clenched teeth.

“You mean the subcellar? No. I just got here and—”

“Then you’d better get down there. Something’s happening.”

Of course something was happening. Hank’s little friend Darryl was undergoing a transformation. Ernst was curious to see what development had put Thompson into such a dither, but could not allow himself to appear too concerned or too curious. Must appear to be on top of the situation at all times.

“I have some calls to make, then—”

“Now!”

Well, well. Feeling assertive today, aren’t we?

He had a few decades on Thompson, but had no doubt he could subdue him if necessary. The man had gone soft since achieving bestsellerdom. But that hadn’t lessened the powder keg of violence within him, and Ernst saw no point in lighting a match. Causing a scene would be counterproductive at this point.

“Very well, since it appears to be of great importance to you, lead the way.”

As Thompson turned and stomped from the room, Ernst rose and followed, grabbing his cane on the way out the door. It had belonged to his father and he treasured it. And one never knew when one might need something with a heavy silver head . . .

When they arrived in the subcellar, the lights were already on. Thompson strode to the Orsa and stood beside it, pointing.

“Look!” he said, a tremor in his voice. “Look what it’s doing to him!”

Ernst stepped up beside him, but not too close, and stared.

He could understand why Thompson was so upset. Yesterday he’d discovered Darryl fully encased, feet and all, within the Orsa. How the Orsa had accomplished that, Ernst had had no idea. But now he had an inkling.

Darryl seemed to be in the grip of some sort of slow peristalsis. Yesterday the soles of his shoes had been just inside the end of the Orsa; now they lay perhaps eighteen inches from the end.

But something different . . .

Ernst stepped forward and suppressed a gasp when he saw what it was.

“Yeah, look at him,” Thompson said. “His fucking skin’s melting off. He’s not being cured, he’s being . . . digested!”

Ernst looked at the hands, the face, the scalp . . . all the exposed flesh seemed to be melting away, baring the muscle and fat and connective tissues beneath. The eyelids were gone, exposing the orbs. But oddly, the lanky hair remained.

No . . . it couldn’t be . . . this wasn’t supposed to . . .

He stepped closer for a better look. When he saw what was really happening, his knees softened with relief. He leaned on his cane and motioned Thompson forward.

“Not at all, Mister Thompson. Take a closer look.” He pointed to Darryl’s outstretched hand where the tendons were plainly visible. Oddly enough, the dirty fingernails appeared unaffected. “The skin is still there, it has simply become translucent.”

Thompson stared a moment, then seemed to sag as if tension were leaking out of him.

“Okay, yeah, I see it now.” He shook his head. “I walked in this morning and took one look and . . . man, it looked like he was dissolving. I just about lost it.”

“I understand,” Ernst said.

But he didn’t. The lore of the Septimus Order mentioned nothing of such a change in the skin. But then, the lore was incomplete—bits and pieces gathered over the millennia from ancient manuscripts like the Compendium of Srem and other forbidden tomes. If anyone besides the One had ever known the true nature of the Fhinntmanchca , that knowledge was lost. Perhaps no one else had ever known.

“But is this supposed to happen?”

“Yes, of course,” Ernst said quickly.

“You should have given me some warning.”

Ernst gave a sage nod. “Yes, I suppose that is true.”

“But why’s it doing that to him?”

“Well, it stands to reason,” he said, fabricating on the fly, “that if the Orsa is going to purge Darryl’s body of all disease, it must penetrate his cells. The transparency is simply part of the cleansing process.”

“Yeah? Makes sense I guess. I mean, as much as any of this makes sense.”

Ernst repressed a satisfied smile. A brilliant ad lib, if he said so himself.

Thompson shook his head. “It’s just that he looks so weird and dead with that bug-eyed stare.”

“But he’s obviously not dead.” Ernst pointed to Darryl’s wrist where his throbbing radial artery was clearly visible. “See? He’s got a pulse.”

“I guess that’s good.”

Good? Ernst thought. It’s wonderful.

6

Weezy shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense.”

Jack leaned back and rubbed his burning eyes. He’d taken the first flight he could out of LAX. It had brought him in late—five hours or so in the air but more than eight hours on the clock.

Eddie had offered him a Heineken, which Jack had gratefully accepted. Then, saying it had been a long day, he’d hit the hay.

Jack envied him. He felt unaccountably tired. He hadn’t done much of anything today but talk to Goren and Weezy and sit in a flying sardine can. Couldn’t be the time change because he hadn’t been out west long enough. Maybe it was the plane. Maybe the proximity to all those people had sucked the juice out of him.