The Strain

strife caused personal problems to be set aside with alacrity.

Kelly said, “I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say we should have had this talk years ago.”

“We should have,” he agreed. “But we couldn’t. It wouldn’t have worked. We had to go through all this shit first. Believe me, I’d have paid any amount not to—not to have gone through one second of it—but here we are. Like old acquaintances.”

“Life doesn’t go at all the way you think it will.”

Eph nodded. “After what my parents went through, what they put me through, I always told myself, never, never, never, never.”

“I know.”

He folded in the spout on the milk carton. “So forget who did what. What we need to do now is make it up to him.”

“We do.”

Kelly nodded. Eph nodded. He swirled the milk around in the carton, feeling the coldness brush up against his palm.

“Christ, what a day,” he said. He thought again about the little girl in Freeburg, the one who had been holding hands with her mother on Flight 753. The one who was Zack’s age. “You know how you always told me, if something hit, some biological threat, that if I didn’t let you know first you’d divorce me? Well—too late for that.”

She came forward, reading his face. “I know you’re in trouble.”

“This isn’t about me. I just want you to listen, okay, and not flip out. There is a virus moving through the city. It’s something… extraordinary… easily the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

“The worst?” She blanched. “Is it SARS?”

Eph almost smiled at the grand absurdity of it all. The insanity.

“What I want you to do is to take Zack and get out of the city. Matt too. As soon as possible—tonight, right now—and as far away as you can possibly go. Away from populated areas, I mean. Your parents… I know how you feel about taking things from them, but they have that place up in Vermont still, right? On top of that hill?”

“What are you saying?”

“Go there. For a few days at least. Watch the news, wait for my call.”

“Wait,” she said. “I’m the head-for-the-hills paranoiac, not you. But… what about my classroom? Zack’s school?” She squinted. “Why won’t you tell me what it is?”

“Because then you would not go. Just trust me, and go,” he said. “Go, and hope we can turn it back somehow, and this all passes quickly.”

“‘Hope?’” she said. “Now you’re really scaring me. What if you can’t turn it back? And—and what if something happens to you?”

He couldn’t stand there with her and address his own doubts. “Kelly—I gotta go.”

He tried to walk out, but she grabbed his arm, checking his eyes to see if it was okay, then put her arms around him. What started as just a make-up hug turned into something more, and by the end of it she was gripping him tightly. “I’m sorry,” she whispered into his ear, then left a kiss on the bristly side of his unshaven neck.

Vestry Street, Tribeca

ELDRITCH PALMER sat waiting on an uncushioned chair on the rooftop patio, bathed in night. The only direct light was that of an outdoor gas lamp burning in the corner. The terrace was on the top of the lower of the two adjoining buildings. The floor was made of square clay tiles, aged and blanched by the elements. One low step preceded a high brick wall at the northern end, with two door-size archways hung with iron-work. Fluted terra-cotta tiling topped the wall and the overhangs on each side. To the left, through wider decorative archways, were oversize doorways to the residence. Behind Palmer, centered before the southern white cement wall, was a headless statue of a woman in swirling robes, her shoulders and arms darkly weathered. Ivy slithered up the stone base. Though a few taller buildings were visible both north and east, the patio was reasonably private, as concealed a rooftop as one might hope to find in lower Manhattan.

Palmer sat listening to the sounds of the city rising off the streets. Sounds that would end so soon. If only they knew this down there, they would embrace this night. Every mundanity of life grows infinitely more precious in the face of impending death. Palmer knew this intimately. A sickly child, he had struggled with his health all his life. Some mornings he had awakened amazed to see another dawn. Most people didn’t know what it was to mark existence one sunrise at a time. What it was like to depend on machines for one’s survival. Good health was the birthright of most, and life a series of days to be tripped through. They had never known the nearness of death. The intimacy of ultimate darkness.

Soon Eldritch Palmer would know their bliss. An endless menu of days stretched out before him. Soon he would know what it was not to worry about tomorrow, or tomorrow’s tomorrow…

A breeze fluttered the patio trees and rustled through some of the plantings. Palmer, seated facing the taller residence, at an angle, next to a small smoking table, heard a rustling. A rippling, like the hem of a garment on the floor. A black garment.

I thought you wanted no contact until after the first week.

The voice—at once both familiar and monstrous—sent a dark thrill racing up Palmer’s crooked back. If Palmer hadn’t purposely been facing away from the main part of the patio—both out of respect as well as sheer human aversion—he would have seen that the Master’s mouth never moved. No voice went out into the night. The Master spoke directly into your mind.

Palmer felt the presence high above his shoulder, and kept his gaze trained on the arched doors to the residence. “Welcome to New York.”

This came out as more of a gasp than he would have liked. Nothing can unman you like an un-man.

When the Master said nothing, Palmer tried to reassert himself. “I have to say, I disapprove of this Bolivar. I don’t know why you should have selected him.”

Who he is matters not to me.

Palmer saw instantly that he was right. So what if Bolivar had been a makeup-wearing rock star? Palmer was thinking like a human, he supposed. “Why did you leave four conscious? It has created many problems.”

Do you question me?

Palmer swallowed. A kingmaker in this life, subordinate to no man. The feeling of abject servility was as foreign to him as it was overwhelming.

“Someone is on to you,” Palmer said quickly. “A medical scientist, a disease detective. Here in New York.”

What does one man matter to me?

“He—his name is Dr. Ephraim Goodweather—is an expert in epidemic control.”

You glorified little monkeys. Your kind is the epidemic—not mine.

“This Goodweather is being advised by someone. A man with detailed knowledge of your kind. He knows the lore and even a bit of the biology. The police are looking for him, but I think that more decisive action is warranted. I believe that this could mean the difference between a quick, decisive victory or a protracted struggle. We have many battles to come, on the human front as well as others—”

I will prevail.

As to that, Palmer harbored no doubts. “Yes, of course.” Palmer wanted the old man for himself. He wanted to confirm his identity before divulging any information to the Master. So he was actively trying not to think about the old man—knowing that, in the presence of the Master, one must protect one’s thoughts…

I have met this old man before. When he was not quite so old.

Palmer went cold with astonished defeat. “You will remember, it took me a long time to find you. My travels took me to the four corners of the world, and there were many dead ends and side roads—many people I had to go through. He was one of them.” He tried to make his change in topic fluid, but his mind felt clouded. Being in the