the spine…this fluttering like maybe a twitching nerve or maybe heart palpitations or…no, nothing like that. God, no, nothing I can explain…not severe…subtle…a subtle fluttering but so…disturbing…nausea…couldn’t eat much….”
Delacroix paused again. Got control of his breathing. Took a swallow of whatever he was drinking.
“Truth. Got to tell the truth. Wouldn’t have gone to the doctor tomorrow. Would’ve had to call Project Control. Let them know it isn’t over. Even more than two years later, it isn’t over. I knew. I knew somehow it wasn’t over. All of us feeling the same way, and not like anything we’d felt before. Jesus, I knew. I was too scared to face it, but I knew. I didn’t know what, but I knew something, knew it was Wyvern coming back to me somehow, some way, Jesus, Wyvern coming back to get me after all this time. Maureen was putting Lizzie to bed, tucking her in bed…and suddenly Lizzie started…she was…she started screaming….”
Delacroix swallowed more of his drink. He banged the glass down as though it was empty.
“I was in the kitchen, and I heard my Lizzie…my little Lizzie so scared, so…screaming. I ran…ran in there, into the bedroom. And she was…she…convulsions…thrashing…thrashing and kicking…flailing with her little fists. Maureen couldn’t control her. I thought…convulsions…afraid she was biting her tongue. I held her…held her down. While I got her mouth open, Maureen folded a sock…going to use it…a pad to keep Lizzie from biting herself. But there was something…something in her mouth…not her tongue, something in her throat…this thing coming up her throat, something alive in her throat. And…and then…then she had her eyes tight shut…but then…but she opened them…and her left eye was bright red…bloodshot…and something was alive in her eye, too, some damn wriggling thing in her eye….”
Sobbing, Delacroix switched off the recorder. God knows how long the poor man required to get control of himself. Of course, there was no lengthy blank section of tape, just another soft click as Delacroix hit the record button and continued:
“I run to our bedroom, to get…get my revolver…and coming back, passing Freddie’s room, I see him…he’s standing by his bed. Freddie…eyes wide…afraid. So I tell him…tell him, get in bed and wait for me. In Lizzie’s room…Maureen has her back against the wall, hands pressed to her temples. Lizzie…she’s still…oh, she’s thrashing…her face…her face all swollen…twisted…the whole bone structure…not even Lizzie anymore…. There’s no hope now. This was that damn place, the other side, coming through, like Lizzie was a doorway. Coming through. Oh, Jesus, I hate myself. I hate myself. I was part of it, I opened the door, opened the door between here and that place, helped make it possible. I opened the door. And now here is Lizzie…so I have to…so I…I shot…shot her…shot her twice. And she’s dead, and so still on the bed, so small and still…but I don’t know if something is alive in her, alive in her though she isn’t anymore. And Maureen, she has…she has both hands to her head…and she says, ‘The fluttering,’ and I know she means it’s inside her head now, because I feel it, too, a fluttering along my spine…fluttering in sympathy with…with whatever was in Lizzie, is in Lizzie. And Maureen says…the most amazing…she says the most amazing thing…she says, ‘I love you,’ because she knows what’s happening, I’ve told her about the other side, the mission, and now she knows somehow I’ve been infected all along, everything dormant for more than two years, but I’m infected, and now them, too, I’ve ruined us all, damned us all, and she knows. She knows what I…what I’ve done to them…and now what I have to do…so she says, ‘I love you,’ which is giving me permission, and I tell her I love her, too, so much, love her so much, and I’m sorry, and she’s crying, and then I shoot her once…once, quick, my sweet Maureen, don’t let her suffer. Then I…oh, I go…I go back down the hall…I go to Freddie’s room. He’s on his back in bed, sweating, hair soaked with sweat, and holding his belly with both hands. I know he feels the fluttering…fluttering in his tummy…because I feel it now in my chest and in my left biceps, like in a vein, and of all places in my testicles, and now along my spine again. I tell him I love him, and I tell him to close his eyes…close his…close his eyes…so I can make him feel better…and then I don’t think I can do it, but I do it. My son. My boy. Brave boy. I make him feel better, and when I fire the shot, all the fluttering in me stops, just stops completely. But I know it’s not over. I’m not alone…not alone in my body. I feel…passengers… something…a heaviness in me…a presence. Quiet. It’s quiet but not for long. Not for long. I’ve reloaded the revolver.”
Delacroix switched off the recorder, pausing to get a grip on his emotions.
With the remote control, I stopped the tape. The late Leland Delacroix wasn’t the only one who needed to compose himself.
Without comment, Bobby got up from the cellist’s stool and went into the kitchen.
After a moment, I followed him.
He was emptying his unfinished bottle of Mountain Dew into the sink, flushing it away with cold water.
“Don’t turn it off,” I said.
While Bobby threw the empty soda bottle in the trash can and opened the refrigerator, I went to the sink. I cupped my hands under the faucet, and for at least a minute, I splashed cold water on my face.
After I dried my face on a couple of paper towels, Bobby handed a bottle of beer to me. He had one, too.
I wanted to have a clear head when we returned to Wyvern. But after what I’d heard on the tape, and considering what else remained to be heard, I could probably have downed a six-pack without effect.
“‘That damn place, the other side,’” Bobby said, quoting Leland Delacroix.
“It’s wherever Hodgson went in his spacesuit.”
“And wherever he came back from when we saw him.”
“Did Delacroix just go nuts, hallucinate everything, kill his family for no reason?”
“No.”
“You think the thing he saw in his daughter’s throat, in her eye — that was real?”
“Totally.”
“Me too. Things we saw in Hodgson’s suit…could that be what the fluttering is about?”
“Maybe that. Maybe something worse.”
“Worse,” I said, trying not to imagine it.
“I got the feeling — wherever the other side is, it’s a real zoo over there.”
We returned to the dining room. Bobby to the stool. Me to the chair by the composition table. After a moment of reluctance, I started the tape.
By the time Delacroix had begun to record again, his demeanor had changed. He wasn’t as emotional as he had been. His voice broke now and then, and he needed to pause to collect himself from time to time, but for the most part, he was striving to soldier through what needed to be said.
“In the garage I keep gardening supplies, including a gallon of Spectracide. Bug killer. I got the can and emptied it on the three bodies. I don’t know if that makes sense. Nothing was…moving in them. In the bodies, I mean. Besides, these aren’t insects. Not like we think of insects. We don’t even know what they are. Nobody knows. Lots of big theories. Maybe they’re something…metaphysical. Do you think? I siphoned some gasoline out of the car. I have a couple gallons here in another can. I’ll use the gasoline to start the fire before…before I finish myself. I’m not going to leave the four of us for overeducated janitors at Project Control. They’ll just do something stupid. Like bag us and do autopsies. And spread this damn thing. I’ll call the Control number after I go down to the corner and mail this tape to you, before I set the fire and…kill myself. I’m all quiet inside right now. Very quiet inside. For now. How long? I want to believe that—”
Delacroix halted in mid-sentence, held his breath as though he were listening for something, and then shut off the recorder.
I stopped the tape. “He didn’t mail the cassette to anyone.”
“Changed his mind. What does he mean — something metaphysical?”
“That was my next question,” I said.
