was too late. He was dead, had been dead for a few months, and buried here, where his remains wouldn’t contaminate anything.”
I feel sick. The walls appear to be pressing closer around us, growing taller and narrower, too, so the sky feels more and more remote, an ever-diminishing point. We’ll never get out, I think, and then take a deep breath, trying to stay calm.
Alex straightens up. “Ready?” he asks me, for the second time this morning. I nod, even though I’m not sure that I am. He allows himself the brief flicker of a smile, and I see, for a second, a bit of warmth spark up in his eyes. Then he’s all business again.
I take one last look at the tombstone before we go in. I try to think of a prayer or something appropriate to say, but nothing comes to me. The lessons of the scientists aren’t really clear about what happens when you die: Supposedly you dissipate into the heavenly matter that is God, and get absorbed by him, although they also tell us that the cured go to heaven and live forever in perfect harmony and order.
“Your name.” I spin around to face Alex. He has already moved past me, headed back for the door. “Alex Warren.”
He gives an almost imperceptible shake of his head. “Assigned to me,” he says.
“Your real name is Alex Sheathes,” I say, and he nods. He has a secret name, just like me. We stand there for one more moment, looking at each other, and in that instant I feel our connection so strongly it’s as though it achieves physical existence, becomes a hand all around us, cupping us together, protecting us. This is what people are always talking about when they talk about God: this feeling, of being held and understood and protected. Feeling this way seems about as close to saying a prayer as you could get, so I follow Alex back inside, holding my breath as we again encounter that awful stink.
I follow Alex down a series of serpentine hallways. The sensation of stillness and peace I had in the courtyard is replaced almost immediately by fear so sharp it is like a blade going straight into the core of me, driving down and deep, until I can hardly breathe or keep going. At points the wailing grows louder, almost to a fever pitch, and I have to cover my ears; then it ebbs away again. Once we pass a man wearing a long white lab coat, stained with what looks like blood; he is leading a patient on a leash. Neither one looks at us as we pass.
We make so many twists and turns I’m beginning to wonder if Alex is lost, especially as the hallways grow dirtier, and the lights above us become fewer in number, so that eventually we are walking through murk and obscurity, with a single functioning bulb to light up twenty feet of blackened stone corridor. At intervals various glowing neon signs appear in the darkness, as though they are rising out of the air itself: WARD ONE, WARD TWO, WARD THREE, WARD FOUR. Alex keeps going, though, and when we pass the hallway that leads to Ward Five I call out to him, convinced he has gotten confused or lost his way.
“Alex,” I say, but even as I say the word it strangles me, because just then we come up to a heavy set of double doors marked with a small sign, barely illuminated, so faint I can hardly read it. And yet it seems to burn as brightly as a thousand suns.
Alex turns around, and to my surprise his face isn’t composed at all. His jaw is working and his eyes are full of pain, and I can tell he hates himself for being there, for being the one to say it, for being the one to show me.
“I’m sorry, Lena,” he says. Above him the sign smolders in the darkness: WARD SIX.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Humans, unregulated, are cruel and capricious; violent and selfish; miserable and quarrelsome. It is only after their instincts and basic emotions have been controlled that they can be happy, generous, and good.
I have a sudden dread of going any farther. That thing in the pit of my stomach squeezes up like a fist, making it hard to breathe. I can’t go on. I don’t want to know.
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” I say. “He said—he said we weren’t allowed.”
Alex reaches out for me like he’s thinking of touching me, then remembers where we are and forces his arms to his sides. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I have friends here.”
“It’s probably not even her.” My voice is rising a little, and I’m worried I might have a meltdown. I lick my lips, trying to keep it together. “It was probably just a big mistake. We shouldn’t have come in the first place. I want to go home.”
I know I must sound like a toddler throwing a tantrum, but I can’t help it.
Walking through those double doors seems absolutely impossible.
“Lena, come on. You have to trust me.” Then he does reach out, for just a second, skating one finger across my forearm. “Okay? Trust me.”
“I do trust you, it’s just…” The air, the stench, the darkness and the sensation of rot all around me: It makes me want to run. “If she isn’t here…
Well, that’s bad. But if she is… I think—I think it might be even worse.”
Alex watches me closely for a second. “You have to know, Lena,” he says finally, firmly, and he’s right. I nod. He gives me the barest flicker of a smile, then reaches forward and heaves open the doors to Ward Six.
We step into a vestibule that looks exactly like what I imagine a cell in the Crypts might be like: The walls and floor are concrete, and whatever color they might once have been painted has now faded to a dingy, mossy gray. A single bulb is set high in the ceiling, and barely delivers enough light to illuminate the tiny space. There is a stool in the corner, occupied by a guard. This guard is actually normal-sized—skinny, even, with acne pockmarks and hair that reminds me of overcooked spaghetti. As soon as Alex and I step through the door, the guard makes a small, reflexive adjustment to his gun, drawing it closer toward his body and swiveling the barrel ever so slightly in our direction.
Alex stiffens beside me. All of a sudden, I feel very alert.
“Can’t be in here,” the guard says. “Restricted area.”
For the first time since entering the Crypts, Alex appears uncomfortable. He fiddles nervously with his badge. “I–I thought Thomas would be here.”
The guard gets to his feet. Amazingly, he’s not much taller than I am—he’s certainly shorter than Alex—but of all the guards I’ve seen today, he frightens me the most. There’s something strange about his eyes, a flatness and hardness that reminds me of a snake. I’ve never had a gun pointed at me before, and staring into the long black tunnel of its barrel makes me feel like I’m going to faint.
“Oh, he’s here, all right. He’s always here, nowadays.” The guard smiles humorlessly, and his fingers dance against the trigger. When he speaks his lips curl upward, revealing a mouth full of crooked yellow teeth. “What do you know about Thomas?”
The room takes on the stillness and charge of the air outside, and reminds me of waiting for thunder to crack. Alex allows himself one small indication of nervousness: He curls and flexes his fingers against his thighs. I can almost see him thinking, trying to figure out what to say next. He must know that mentioning Thomas was a bad decision—even I heard the contempt and suspicion in the guard’s voice as he pronounced the name.
After what seems like a terribly long time—but is probably only a few seconds—the blank, official look sweeps down over his face again.
“We heard there was some kind of problem, that’s all.” The statement is sufficiently vague, and a decent assumption. Alex twirls his security badge idly between two fingers. The guard flicks his eyes to it, and I can tell he relaxes.
Fortunately, he doesn’t try to look at it more closely. Alex has only Level One security clearance in the labs, which means he barely has the right to visit the janitor’s closet, much less parade around restricted areas, there or anywhere else in Portland, as though he owns them.
