silly,” said Lila. “We shoot all the babies now. That way they won’t be eaten.”
The dream changed—one part of him knew he was dreaming, while another part did not—and Grey was in the tank now. Something was coming to get him, but he couldn’t make himself move. He was on his hands and knees, slurping the blood. His job was to drink it, drink it all, which was impossible: the blood had begun to gush through the hatch, filling the compartment. An ocean of blood. The blood was rising above his chin, his mouth and nose were filling, he was choking, drowning—
He opened his eyes to a harsh light. Something felt caught in his throat; he began to cough. Something about drowning? But the dream was already breaking apart, its images atomizing, leaving only a residue of fear.
Where was he?
Some kind of hospital. He was wearing a gown, but that was all; he felt the chill of nakedness beneath it. Thick straps bound his wrists and ankles to the rails of the bed, holding him in place like a mummy in a sarcophagus. Wires snaked from beneath his gown to a cart of medical equipment; an IV was threaded into his right arm.
Somebody was in the room.
Two somebodies in fact, the pair hovering at the foot of the bed in their bulky biosuits, their faces shielded by plastic masks. Behind them was a heavy steel door and, positioned high on the wall in the corner, watching the scene with its unblinking gaze, a security camera.
“Mr. Grey, I’m Horace Guilder,” the one on the left said. His tone of voice struck Grey as oddly cheerful. “This is my colleague Dr. Nelson. How are you feeling?”
Grey did his best to focus on their faces. The one who’d spoken looked anonymously middle-aged, with a heavy, square-jawed head and pasty skin; the second man was considerably younger, with tight dark eyes and a scraggly little Vandyke. He didn’t look like any doctor Grey had ever met.
He licked his lips and swallowed. “What is this place? Why am I tied up?”
Guilder answered with a calming tone. “That’s for your own protection, Mr. Grey. Until we figure out what’s wrong with you. As for where you are,” he said, “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that just yet. Suffice it to say that you’re among friends here.”
Grey realized they must have sedated him; he could barely move a muscle, and it wasn’t just the straps. His limbs felt like iron, his thoughts moving through his brain with a lazy aimlessness, like guppies in a tank. Guilder was holding a cup of water to his lips.
“Go on, drink.”
Grey’s stomach turned—just the smell of it was revolting, like some hideously overchlorinated pool. Thoughts came back to him, dark thoughts: the blood in the tank, and Grey’s face buried greedily in it. Had that actually happened? Had he dreamed it? But no sooner had these questions formed in his mind than a kind of roaring seemed to fill his head, a vast hunger lurching to life inside him, so overwhelming that his entire body clenched against the straps.
“Whoa now,” Guilder said, backing away suddenly. “Steady there.”
More images were coming back to him, rising through the fog. The tank in the road, the dead soldiers, and explosions all around; the feel of his hand crashing through the Volvo’s window, and the fields detonating with fire, and the car sailing through the corn, and the bright lights of the helicopter, and the space-suited men, dragging Lila away.
“Where is she? What have you done with her?”
Guilder glanced toward Nelson, who frowned.
“You needn’t worry, Mr. Grey, we’re taking good care of her. She’s right across the hall, in fact.”
“Don’t you hurt her.” His fists were clenched; he was straining against the straps. “You touch her and I’ll —”
“And you’ll what, Mr. Grey?”
But there was nothing; the straps held firm. Whatever they had given him, it had taken his strength away.
“Try not to excite yourself, Mr. Grey. Your friend is perfectly fine. The baby, too. What we’re a little unclear on is just how the two of you came to be together. I was hoping you might help us with that.”
“Why do you want to know?”
One eyebrow lifted incredulously behind the faceplate. “For starters, it seems that the two of you are the last people to come out of Colorado alive. Believe me when I tell you, this is a matter of some interest to us. Was she at the Chalet? Is that where you met her?”
Just the word made Grey’s mind clench with panic. “The Chalet?”
“Yes, Mr. Grey. The Chalet.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Then where?”
He swallowed. “At the Home Depot.”
For just a moment, Guilder said nothing. “Where was this?”
Grey tried to put his thoughts together, but his brain had gone all fuzzy again. “Denver someplace. I don’t know exactly. She wanted me to paint the nursery.”
Guilder quickly turned toward the second man, who shrugged. “Could be the fentanyl,” Nelson said. “It may take him a little while to sort things out.”
But Guilder was undeterred. There was something more forceful about the man’s gaze now. It seemed to bore right into him. “We need to know what happened at the Chalet. How did you get away?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Was there a girl there? Did you see her?”
There was a girl? What were they talking about?
“I didn’t see anyone. I just… I don’t know. It was all so confusing. I woke up at the Red Roof.”
“The Red Roof? What’s that?”
“A motel, on the highway.”
A puzzled frown. “When was this?”
Grey tried to count. “Three days ago? No, four.” He nodded his head against the pillow. “Four days.”
The two men looked at each other. “It doesn’t make sense,” Nelson said. “The Chalet was destroyed twenty-two days ago. He’s not Rip Van Winkle.”
“Where were you for those three weeks?” Guilder pressed.
The question made no sense. Three weeks?
“I don’t know,” Grey said.
“I’ll ask you again, Mr. Grey. Was Lila at the Chalet? Is that where you met her?”
“I told you,” he said. He was pleading now, his resistance gone. “She was at the Home Depot.”
His thoughts were swirling like water going down a drain. Whatever they’d given him, it had screwed him up good. With a thump in his gut, Grey realized what the straps were all about. They were going to study him. Like the sticks. Like Zero. And when they were done with him, Richards, or somebody like him, would put the red light on Grey, and that would be the end of him.
“Please, it’s me you want. I’m sorry I ran away. Just don’t hurt Lila.”
For a moment the two men said nothing, just stared at him from behind their faceplates. Then Guilder turned toward Nelson, nodding.
“Put him back under.”
Nelson took a syringe and a vial of clear liquid from the cart. While Grey looked on helplessly, he inserted the needle into the IV tube and pushed the plunger.
“I just clean,” Grey said feebly. “I’m just a janitor.”
“Oh, I think you’re much more than that, Mr. Grey.”
And with these words in his ears, Grey slipped away again.
