CHAPTER 28

A small fragment of his awareness saw everything clearly from a mute corner of his mind, but that part had given up trying to rouse the rest of him. Noah still lay where Molly had left him, not exactly asleep but a long way from consciousness.

He heard a faraway pounding and muffled shouts coming from somewhere outside the churning darkness in his head. These sounds didn’t raise an alarm; they only blended themselves smoothly into his bad dream.

His nightmares had grown infrequent as he’d gotten older, but they’d always been the same. No slow‑ motion chases, shambling zombies, or yellow eyes peering from an open closet door; the running theme of his nocturnal terrors was nothing so elaborate. In every one he was simply trapped, always held by something crushing and inescapable as his life slowly drained away. Buried alive in a tight pine coffin, pinned and smothering beneath a pillow pressed to his face by powerful hands, caught under the crush of an avalanche, terrified and helpless and knowing he’d already begun to die.

This time it was deep water. He could see daylight glinting off the waves high above; all the air he needed was there, but it was much too far away. As he tried to swim up every stroke of his arms only sent him farther downward, until at last some primitive instinct took over and demanded that he inhale. Salt water rushed into his straining lungs, heaved out, and poured in again, burning like acid.

This was the part where he knew he had to wake up, because if he didn’t he was sure the dream would kill him. But it wouldn’t let him go.

There was a boom, a clattering much louder than the earlier sounds, then a grip on his shoulders, someone shaking him. He struggled against the pressure and somehow forced his eyes open.

Black things were crawling across the floor and up the walls, across his arms, and over the face of the man above him. He flailed at them and lost his balance, rolling to the floor and hitting it hard. People ran past, guns drawn and shouting. One older woman knelt next to him and opened the bag she’d set down beside her. She touched his face, said his name as though it was a question, and held open one of his eyes with the pad of her thumb. A hot white light shone in, so bright it stung, and he tried to pull away.

“Easy, ” the woman said, and she made a motion to someone behind him.

Others came, and Noah felt the buttons of his shirt being undone, hands moving over him as though they were feeling for something, and then a pain and a tearing sound, like a patch of carpet tape had been ripped from his upper chest near the shoulder. One of his sleeves was pulled up and something cold and wet rubbed against the vein at the bend of his elbow.

“You might feel a little pinch, ” the woman said.

He looked down and watched the gradual pierce of a hypodermic needle, but felt only a distant pressure and then a chill trickling up the vessel as the plunger was pushed to its stop. The room had begun a slow spin with him at its center.

The doctor snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Noah? Can you tell me what year it is? ”

“Where am I? ”

“You’re safe. What’s your mother’s maiden name, do you know that? ” She had a stethoscope to his chest, and her attention was on the face of her wristwatch.

“Wilson. Jaime Wilson. ” He felt his head beginning to clear. A gradual, unnatural onset of wide‑ awakeness was taking hold, likely brought on by whatever had been in that injection. A pounding set in at his temple, and he pushed away the hands that were supporting him as he sat up on his own.

“And what day is today? ”

“I got here on Saturday night. ” A few others had gathered around and he noticed them exchanging a look when they heard this answer. “What happened? How long have I been out? ”

“It’s Monday, about noon, ” the woman said. She snapped off her gloves and returned her things to the medical kit, then stood and turned to one of the men. “I’ll take him now. Three of you come with me and the rest should finish up here, then be sure to call in. ”

Monday, about noon; he’d been dead to the world for forty hours. Noah tried his best to let that sink in as two of the men helped him to his feet. They stayed close, as though half expecting him to collapse immediately if he tried to walk on his own.

“Where are we going? ” he asked.

The woman looked at him, and her demeanor had noticeably chilled. It’s a thing with some doctors; the instant you’re well they don’t see much use in courtesy.

“Your father wants to see you, ” she said.

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