Seize the Night

the composition table and, sitting down, used the remote control to switch on the cassette player.
    For half a minute, we heard only the hiss of unrecorded magnetic tape passing over the playback head. A soft click and a new hollow quality to the hiss marked the beginning of the recording, which at first consisted only of someone—I assumed it was Delacroix—taking deep, rhythmic breaths, as if engaged in some form of meditation or aroma therapy.
    Bobby said, “I was hoping for revelation, not respiration.”
    The sound was utterly mundane, with not the least inflection of fear or menace, or any other emotion. Yet the fine hairs stirred on the nape of my neck, as though these exhalations were actually coming from some one standing close behind me.
    “He's trying to get a grip on himself,” I said. “Deep, even breaths to get a grip on himself.” A moment later, my interpretation proved true when the breathing suddenly grew ragged, then desperate.
    Delacroix broke down and began to weep, tried to get a grip on himself, but choked on his pain, and let loose with great trembling sobs punctuated by wordless cries of despair.
    Although I'd never known this man, listening to him in such violent throes of misery was disturbing. Fortunately, it didn't last long, because he switched off the recorder.
    With another soft click, the recording began again, and though Delacroix's self-control was tenuous, he managed to speak. His voice was so thick with emotion that sometimes his speech slurred, and when he seemed in danger of breaking down completely, he paused either to take deep breaths or to drink something, presumably whiskey.
    “This is a warning. A testament. My testament. A warning to the world. I don't know where to begin. Begin with the worst. They're dead, and I killed them. But it was the only way to save them. The only way to save them. You have to understand … I killed them because I loved them. God help me. I couldn't let them suffer, be used. Be used. God, I couldn't let them be used that way. There was nothing else I could do …”
    I remembered the snapshots arranged beside Delacroix's corpse. The elfin, gap-toothed little girl. The boy in the blue suit and red bow tie. The pretty blonde with the appealing smile. I suspected that these were the people who, to be saved, were killed.
    “We all developed these symptoms, just this afternoon, Sunday afternoon, and we were going to go to the doctor tomorrow, but we didn't make it that far. Mild fever. Chills. And every once in a while this … fluttering … this odd fiuttering in the chest … or sometimes the stomach, in the abdomen, but then the next time in the neck, along 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 uttering 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 Wyvem 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 …