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Bobby slipped two fingers under Toregard’s wrist, feeling for a pulse He shook his head: nothing

Batwing shadoooped along one wall, across the ceiling

Sasha spun toward the movement

I reached under un

The shadoere only shadows, sent flying through the room by a sudden flurry of action on the television screen

The third corpse was slu footstool, arms on the chair arht on and off, and Roosevelt whispered, "Colonel Ellway"

Colonel Eaton Ellway had been second in coht Bay after the base was closed Retired Or engaged in a clandestine assignment in civilian clothes

With no additional dead istered as on the television It was tuned to a cable channel that was running an ani

We stood for ato the house

Other music and other voices came from other roo

Death lives here

Frorossly misnamed--we cautiously crossed the front hall to the study Sasha and Roosevelt halted at the doorway

A tambour door was open on an entertainment center incorporated into a wall of bookshelves, and The Lion King was on the television, with the volu "Hakuna Matata"

Inside, Bobby and I found two more members of this suicide club with squares of black silk over their heads A man sat at the desk, and a wolasses near each of theer had the heart to strip away their veils The black silkthat was coether in this ritual of self-destruction I thought, however, that at least in part, itinvolved in work that had brought humanity to these straits If they felt renity, and disturbing the rooard, and Ellway

Bobby seemed to understand the reason for my hesitancy, and he lifted the veil on the ht with the hope ofan identification This was no one that either of us knew, a handsorayin the Morris chair was also a stranger, but when I directed the light at her face, I didn’t immediately switch it off

With a soft whistle, Bobby sucked air between his teeth, and I le to keepbad news, Sasha and Roosevelt cah neither of them spoke a word, their faces revealed all that needed to be said about their shock and revulsion

The dead woht was green, and not remotely norolden, the lens a gold-green The black pupil was not round but elliptical--like the pupil in the eye of a snake

The socket encircling that terrifying eye was badly misshapen Indeed, there were subtle but fearsoht side of her once lovely face: brow, te open in a silent cry Her lips were peeled back in a rictus, revealing her teeth, which for the ht side, however, were sharply pointed, and one eyetooth see itself into a fang

I ht down her body, to her hands, which were in her lap I expected to see more htly together, and clasped in them was a rosary: black beads, silver chain, an exquisite little silver crucifix

Such desperation was apparent in the posture of her pale hands, such pathos, that I switched off the light, overcorim evidence of her final distress see the first body in the living room, in spite of the black silk veils, I’d known that these people had not couilt over their involveuilty, perhaps all of them did, but they participated in this che and because they were deeply fearful of what they were becoue retrovirus has transferred other species’ DNA into human cells, the effects have been liically, except for telltale animal eyeshine in thebrains have been confident that physical change is impossible They believe that as the cells of the body wear out and are routinely replaced, new cells will not contain the sequences of anieneration--not even if stehout the huured wo Hideous physical change clearly can accompany mental deterioration

Each infected individual receives a load of alien DNA different from the one that anybody else receives, which ular in every case Soe, ments from so many sources that there is no focused cueneral destabilization of the syste cancers and deadly autoiically devolve into a subhues, unspeakable needs Those who, in addition, suffer physical metahtmare zoo

My ht and parched Even my cardiac muscle seemed to have withered, for in e

The singing and co failed to fill do about when he predicted the iently draped the square of silk over the wo her tortured features

As Bobby’s hands carip on the extinguished flashlight, as if I ht use it as a weapon I half expected to see the woman’s eyes shift, to hear her snarl, to see those pointed teeth flash and blood spurt, even as she looped the rosary around his neck and pulled him down into a deadly eination I saariness in Bobby’s face His hands twitched nervously as he replaced the silk