Page 232 (1/1)

"That ought to do it," Michael said

Ten o

--

A at the back of her skull This was followed by the sensation of being dragged Her thoughts refused to organize Where was she? What had occurred? What force was pulling her along? Solitary pictures drifted by, pushed bystatic; fat, feathered snowflakes descending fro color; the tossing, blue-black sea There was the floor--dirty, scuffed Her tongue was dense and heavy in her mouth She tried to make a sound, but none would come The floor passed by in aortal jerks, ti pressure on her wrists The idea of resistance took hold, but when she attempted to move her limbs, she found she had no power to act; her body had been sundered froht, a kind of filtered glowing, and in the next instant everything changed: how the air moved on her skin, the way sound behaved, her intuitive sense of the physical parameters around her Noises expanded and leapt away; the air s

"Leave her there, please"

The voice--nonchalant, even a little bored--came from someplace ahead The pressure on her wrists released; her face sla ball ricocheted around the interior of her skull like an ember spat from a fire

"Gently, for God’s sake"

Consciousness ebbed, then, like a dark wave returning to shore, broke upon her again She tasted blood in her ainst her cheek The light, as it? And the sound? A low-grade , notbodies She sensed the presence of faces Faces and also hands, lurking in a fog Her brain told her: Look harder, Aood at all

She was surrounded by virals The first layer was crouched around her at a distance of just a yard or two--jaws clicking, throats a the air with s the keys of invisible pianos This was bad, but not the worst of it The room writhed and throbbed, a population of hundreds They carpeted the walls They gazed down from the balconies like spectators at a contest They filled each nook and corner and perched atop every ledge The space was squir like a pit of snakes

"That all went rather smoothly," the voice drolly continued "I’m a little bit aet the better of the her e the proper chain of co seemed delayed and out of sync The voice seemed to e It flowed over and into her like slick oil, lodging with cloying, buttery sweetness at the back of her throat

"Would it be too obvious to say how long I’ve waited to meet you? But I have Since the day Jonas told me of your existence, I’ve wondered, When e meet? When willher that? She discovered the sky No, not the sky: the ceiling, far above, and on it the i theuilty he felt How sorry he was ‘Jesus, Tim, you should see her She’s just a little kid She doesn’t even have a proper last nairl froht A viewed frohts attaching to this notion, and as they did, new ideas began to foran to open to her circue entered her lass

A dark chuckle "Not really funny, I suppose, when you put it in the context of a few billion corpses Still, the whole thing was quite a perfor He should have been an actor"

Fanning, she thought

The voice was Fanning

And everything cah "Always hoping that my Liz would be on the next train Do you knohat that’s like? But how could you How could anyone?"

She struggled onto all fours She was in the west end of the hall To her right, the ticket s, barred like cells in a jail; to her left, the shadowy recesses of train platforht, pulsed with a febrile glow Ahead, at a distance of perhaps a hundred feet, stood the kiosk, topped by its pearlescent clocks Aa dark suit He was positioned in profile, back erect and chin tipped slightly upward, left hand tucked casually in the pocket of his suit coat, his attention aimed at the dark maws of the tunnels