Seize the Night

bitterly.
    He was speaking about his own pain, not Toby's. Toby is at peace with the world. Or was.
    I said, “You always loved him for what he was.”
    His voice was sharp and tremulous. “In spite of what he was.”
    “That's not fair to yourself. I know how you've felt about him all these years. You've treasured him.”
    “You don't know shit about how I felt, not shit ,” he said, and he poked the air in front of me with the club, as if driving home his point.
    With sorrow as heavy as a rock on my chest, I said, “If that's true, if I didn't understand how you felt about Toby, then I didn't know you at all.”
    “Maybe you didn't,” he said. “Or maybe you can't bear to think Toby could end up with a more normal life than yours. We all like to have someone to look down on—don't we, Chris?”
    My heart contracted as if around a thorn. The ferocity of his anger revealed such profound terror and pain that I couldn't bear to respond to this mean-spirited accusation. We had been friends too long for me to hate him, and I was overcome only by pity.
    He was mad with hope. In reasonable measure, hope sustains us.
    In great excess, it distorts perceptions, dulls the mind, corrupts the heart to no less an extent than does heroin.
    I don't believe I've misunderstood Manuel all these years. High on hope, he has forgotten what he loved and, instead, loves the ideal more than the reality, which is the cause of all the misery that the human species creates for itself.
    Descending footsteps sounded on the stairs. I looked toward the hall as Feeney and the other deputy appeared in the foyer. Feeney went into the living room, the other man into the study, where they switched on the lights and dialed up the rheostats.
    “What's the second thing you came here to tell me?” I asked Manuel.
    “They're going to get control of this.”
    “Of what?”
    “This plague.”
    “With what?” Bobby asked. “A bottle of Lysol?”
    “Some people are immune.”
    “Not everyone,” Bobby said as glass shattered in the living room.
    Manuel said, “But the immune factor has been isolated. Soon there'll be a vaccine, and a cure for those already infected.” I thought of the missing children, but I didn't mention them.
    “Some people are still becoming,” I said.
    “And we're learning there's only so much change they're able to tolerate.” I strove to resist the flood of hope that might have swept me away.
    “Only so much? How much?”
    “There's a threshold … They become acutely aware of the changes taking place in them. Then they're overcome by fear. An intolerable fear of themselves. Hatred of themselves. The self-hatred escalates until … they psychologically implode.”
    “Psychological implosion? What the hell does that mean?” Then I understood. “Suicide?”
    “Beyond suicide. Violent … frenzied self-destruction. We've seen … a number of cases. You understand what this means?” I said, “When they self-destruct, they're no longer carriers of the retrovirus. The plague is self-limiting.”
    Judging by the sound, Frank Feeney was smashing a small table or chair against one of the living-room walls.
    I guessed that the other deputy was sweeping Sasha's bottles of vitamins and herbs off the shelves in the study. They were dutifully teaching us a lesson and respect for the law.
    “Most of us will get through this all right,” Manuel said.
    But who among us will not? I wondered.
    “Animals, too,” I said. “They self-destruct.”
    He regarded me with suspicion. “We're seeing indications. What have you seen?” I thought of the birds. The veve rats, which had been dead a long time.
    The pack of coyotes no doubt were nearing the threshold of tolerable change.
    “Why're you telling me this?” I asked.
    “So you'll stay the hell out of the way. Let the right people manage this situation. People who know what they're doing. People with credentials.”
    “The usual big brains,” Bobby said.
    Manuel poked the club in our direction. “You may think you're heroes, but you'll just be getting in the way.”
    “I'm no hero,” I assured him.
    Bobby said, “Me, hell, I'm just a surf-smacked, sun-fried, beer whacked board head.”
    Manuel said, “There's too much at stake here for us to allow anyone to have an agenda of his own.”
    “What about the troop?” I asked. “The monkeys haven't self-destructed.”
    “They're different. They were engineered in the lab, and they are what they are. They are what