Seize the Night

but she opened them … and her left eye was bright red … bloodshot … and something was alive in her eye, too, some damn wriggling thing in her eye … ”
    Sobbing, Delacroix switched off the recorder. God knows how long the poor man required to get control of himself. Of course, there was no lengthy blank section of tape, just another soft click as Delacroix hit the record button and continued:
    “I run to our bedroom, to get … get my revolver … and coming back passing Freddie's room, I see him … he's standing by his bed. Freddie … eyes wide … afraid. So I tell him … get in bed and wait for me. In Lizie's room … Maureen has her back against the wall, hands pressed to her temples. Lizzie … she's still … oh, she's thrashing … her face … her face all swollen … twisted … the whole bone structure … not even Lizzie anymore … There's no hope now. This was that damn place, the other side, coming through, like Lizzie was a doorway. Coming through. Oh, Jesus, I hate myself I hate myself, I was part of it, I opened the door, opened the door between here and that place, helped make it possible. I opened the door. And now here is Lizzie … so I have to … so I … I shot … shot her … shot her twice. And she's dead, and so still on the bed, so small and still … but I don't know if something is alive in her, alive in her though she isn't anymore. And Maureen, she has … she has both hands to her head … and she says, The fluttering, and I know she means it's inside her head now, because I feel it, too, a fluttering along my spine … fluttering in sympathy with … with whatever was in Lizzie, is in Lizzie. And Maureen says … the most amazing … she says the most amazing thing … she says, I love you, because she knows what's happening, I've told her about the other side, the mission, and now she knows somehow I've been infected all along, everything dormant for more than two years, but I'm infected, and now them, too, I've ruined us all, damned us all, and she knows. She knows what I … what I've done to them … and now what I have to do … so she says, I love you, which is giving me permission, and I tell her I love her, too, so much, love her so much, and I'm sorry, and she's crying, and then I shoot her once … once, quiet my sweet Maureen, don't let her suffer. Then I … oh, I go … I go back down the hall … I go to Freddie's room. He's on his back in bed, sweating, hair soaked with sweat, and holding his belly with both hands. I know he feels the fluttering … fiuttering in his tummy … because I feel it now in my chest and in my left biceps, like in a vein, and of all places in my testicles, and now along my spine again. I tell him I love him, and I tell him to close his eyes … close his … close his eyes … so I can make him feel better … and then I don't think I can do it, but I do it. My son. My boy. Brave boy. I make him feel better, and when I fire the shot, all the fluttering in me stops, just stops completely. But I know it's not over. I'm not alone … not alone in my body. I feel … passengers … something … a heaviness in me … a presence. Quiet. It's quiet but not for long Not for long I've reloaded the revolver.”
    Delacroix switched off the recorder, pausing to get a grip on his emotions.
    With the remote control, I stopped the tape. The late Leland Delacroix wasn't the only one who needed to compose himself.
    Without comment, Bobby got up from the cellist's stool and went into the kitchen.
    After a moment, I followed him.
    He was emptying his unfinished bottle of Mountain Dew into the sink, flushing it away with cold water.
    “Don't turn it off,” I said.
    While Bobby threw the empty soda bottle in the trash can and opened the refrigerator, I went to the sink. I cupped my hands under the faucet, and for at least a minute, I splashed cold water on my face.
    After I dried my face on a couple of paper towels, Bobby handed a bottle of beer to me. He had one, too.
    I wanted to have a clear head when we returned to Wyvern. But after what I'd heard on the tape, and considering what else remained to be heard, I could probably have downed a six-pack without effect.
    “That damn place, the other side,” Bobby said, quoting Leland Delacroix.
    “It's wherever Hodgson went in his spacesuit.”
    “And wherever he came back from when we saw him.”
    “Did Delacroix just go nuts, hallucinate everything, kill his family for no