standing behind him. Desperately he whispered into the mike, “Help me, Valdiva. Please help me.”
Fifty-three
Wherever Phoenix was in the bunker he worked the camera control. On TV I saw the image expand to fill the screen. I heard Zak and Tony breathe in sharply, as if taken by surprise. I found myself staring hard, feeling an electric shiver run up my backbone as my eyes took in a figure behind Phoenix. A girl of around twenty sat with her back to the wall. Dark hair with odd apple-red tints poured down over one shoulder. Her skin had an amber glistening appearance, as if she’d poured olive oil all over herself. Her eyes were lightly closed. She seemed to be dozing with her back to the wall, her knees raised upward. One open hand rested lightly on her knee, palm upward, fingers slightly curled. She was entirely naked.
Phoenix’s voice came over the speakers in a breathy whisper. “The hive changed when you left. Its color deepened to crimson. It began pulsating as if it became agitated. Then a couple of days later I woke to find that the membrane had ruptured, releasing the fluid onto the floor.”
“You’re making it sound like a birth, Phoenix.”
“That’s exactly what it was… Later I found her wandering ’round the corridors.”
“You sure she came out of the hive? I mean, she isn’t someone from the outside?”
“Sure she’s from the hive. This place is locked down tight. Not even a bug could creep in here without me knowing.”
I looked at the close-up of the girl’s sleeping face. You could even see individual lashes resting on her cheeks, while her black eyebrows formed two slender arches above her eyes. A lock of dark hair hung down over her forehead.
“So you’ve got yourself company, Phoenix,” I said at last. “What do you want me to do about it?”
“You’ve got to help me, Valdiva. She won’t let me out of here.”
“Come on, Phoenix; she can’t weigh more than a hundred pounds.”
“I-I can’t explain it, but she’s got into my head somehow. She makes me do things…”
Tony caught my eye and touched his temple. Nuts.
“Yeah, don’t forget I see you, too, guys. I’m not in-sane. This is for real. She can get inside my head. It’s like sleepwalking.” Phoenix sounded agitated. “I black out and find I’ve sealed all the doors to the command center. Then I find I’ve opened the outer door to let those crazy bastards in. I mean, what the goddam fuck’s going on? I can’t stop myself… I feel like my head’s gonna explode. And all she does is sit there for hours and hours. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t even look at me. Jesus Christ, I’m-”
“Phoenix! Has she said anything to you?”
“No…” He took a breath to steady himself. “No.
Not one word. Like I said, she can reach into my skull… Please, it’s freaking me out, man. I want out of here.”
“Phoenix-”
“She’s really scaring me. I know that makes me sound yellow, but she gets inside my head, and I see what she sees. Then I remember what it’s like to be in the hive. I see myself in all that pink shit… It feels like I’m drowning… and-and I’m hungry all the time. I’m so fucking hungry I feel as if my guts are going to explode. Jesus, guys, it’s a nightmare… a fucking nightmare.” Phoenix’s face suddenly ballooned onto the screen, the eyes huge and pleading. “You’ve got to do something! Please, Valdiva. I saved your neck twice. You owe me. A blood debt, you understand? You’ve got to stop her doing this to me.”
I watched the screen as he backed away, his face shrinking back into focus. Behind him the naked woman sat on the floor. During the man’s panicky rant she never moved a finger. The hand still remained there limply palm up, like someone waiting for the first drop of rain on a summer’s day.
Meanwhile Phoenix whispered over and over to him-self, “I gotta get out of here. I gotta. I can’t take it any more. Please, man, I can’t take any more… please, please…”
“Phoenix, just open the doors and walk out of there.”
“I can’t, I can’t, she won’t let me.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t you hear me right, Valdiva? She’s screwed’round with my head. I’ve tried… I get up to walk to the keypad. But then…” He clicked his fingers. “I’m sitting back here again. It’s like being trapped in a dream.”
Zak spoke in a cold voice. “Kill her.”
“You don’t think I haven’t tried? Jesus H. Christ, I must have tried a thousand times. But the moment I move toward her I black out and find myself back here in this fucking chair again. Listen to me, she’s inside my head. She works me like I work this damn computer.”
“Why do you think she’s allowing you to speak to us now?”
“I don’t know… I don’t think she- it! -is fully formed. It needs to stay here until it’s ready to leave.”
“So why did she allow you to save us from the hornets? Surely she knows we must be a threat.”
“Sure she knows all about you.” Phoenix gave a grim laugh. “I’d wager she’s hearing and seeing you right now. Either through my ears and eyes or in some way I know shit about… What do you say to that, guys?”
“So why save us from her bodyguard?”
“Valdiva, you still don’t get it, do you, man? Are you deliberately being stupid or what?” Phoenix lurched forward to fill the shot again. His eyes blazed out from the TV screen. “Valdiva, you and she are the same. You are both the product of the hive… Am I getting through? You… are… both… from… the… fucking… hive.”
“That again, Phoenix? You are insane.”
“List the facts, Valdiva. You’ve been in close contact with hornets, so that means you were probably infected months ago. You’re the only person we know of that instinctively knows when a person is infected… your two pals there can back me up on that one, hey, guys?” He steamed on, speaking faster. “When you were on the run from the things you say you fell sick. Only you didn’t remember what happened exactly because you were unconscious for weeks. Now, how can anyone survive in a coma for weeks without expert medical care?”
“My mother and sister took care of me.”
“You bet they did.” Phoenix glared through the TV screen, so close one eye filled it. Red veins crazed the glistening white. “You were hive, Valdiva. And Mom and sis procured men and women and children for you to feed on, just like I did with this one.” He jerked his head back at the girl.
“You’re out of your mind.”
“Am I? Look at the hair, the color of her skin. They’re just the same as yours.” He gave a triumphant snort. “Now that’s what I call a family likeness.”
I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the voice. “Phoenix, it’s not true. I was sick, that’s all.” I glanced at Tony and Zak; they returned my gaze, but there was something uneasy about it.
Phoenix ranted on. “You were just like this thing in here, Valdiva. And when your Mom and sister outlived their usefulness you just wished them dead… and they died… That’s what these monsters can do, Valdiva.” He stopped, but his breathing continued loudly over the speaker. “But I don’t care about that now. I don’t care if you two become the new Adam and Eve and repopulate the world with a master race… because all I want is out.” His voice broke. “I’ve had enough of this stinking, rotten nightmare… I can’t take it anymore. Really, I can’t.”
There was a pause. No one spoke as his breathing echoed in the lounge. I gestured to Zak to pass me the backpack. Pulling back the zipper, I saw two sticks of dynamite taped together with a length of fuse. For a moment I planned blasting through the doors into Phoenix’s communications center. But the doors were too thick. This little bundle of explosive wouldn’t do it.
Phoenix’s voice rasped dryly, “So how you going to help me, Valdiva? Or are we going to sit here and watch each other until doomsday?”
I closed the backpack so he wouldn’t see the dynamite through his spy cameras.
“Phoenix, how are we going to get in there to help you?”
“I told you, I can’t open the doors. She won’t let me.”
“There’s got to be a way in. Ventilation ducts?”
“Too small. Unless you can shrink yourself to the size of a mouse.”
