The Strain

  He pulled out into the boulevard, continuing west toward Manhattan, one eye out for tails. The van bounced over some roadwork and he listened closely but heard nothing shift in back. Yet something was weighing down the suspension.

  He got thirsty and pulled over again outside a corner market, picking up two twenty-four-ounce cans of Tecate. He jammed one of the red-and-gold cans into the cup holder and pulled out again, the city buildings coming up across the river now, the sun falling behind them. Night was coming. He thought about his brother at home, Crispin, that shitbag addict, showing up just as Gus was trying his best to be good to his mother. Sweating out chemicals on the living room sofa, and all Gus wanted to do was slide a rusty blade between his ribs. Bringing his disease into their crib. His older brother was a ghoul, a straight-up zombie, but she wouldn’t put him out. She let him lay around and pretended he wasn’t shooting smack in her bathroom, biding time until he would vanish again, along with some of her things.

  Gus needed to put some of this dinero sucio aside for his madre. Give it to her after Crispin was gone. Stick some more in his hat and leave it there for her. Make her happy. Do something right.

  Gus pulled out his phone before the tunnel. “Felix, man. Come get me.”

  “Where you at, bro?”

  “I’ll be down Battery Park.”

  “Battery Park? All the way down there, Gusto?”

  “So roll over to Ninth and drop straight down, bitch. We’re going out. Have ourselves a party, man. That money I owe you—I made me some flash today. Bring me out a jacket or something to wear, clean shoes. Get me into a club.”

  “Fuckin’—anything else?”

  “Just pull your fingers out of your sister’s concha and come get me—comprende?”

  He came out of the tunnel into Manhattan and drove across town before turning south. He maneuvered onto Church Street, south of Canal, and started checking street signs. The address was a loft building fronted with scaffolding, its windows plastered with building permits, but without any construction trucks around. The street was quiet, residential. The garage worked as advertised, the access code raising a steel door under which the van just fit, rolling down a ramp beneath the building.

  Gus parked and sat still a moment, listening. The garage was dingy and underlit, looking to him like a good trap, the kicked-up dust swirling in the fading light through the open doorway. His impulse was to beat a hasty retreat, but he needed to be sure he was out clean. He waited as the garage door rolled shut.

  Gus folded the pages and envelope from the glove compartment and stuffed them inside his pockets, draining the last of the first beer and crushing the can to an aluminum pick, then stepping out of the van. After a moment’s deliberation, he went back in with his hand rag and wiped down the steering wheel, the radio knobs, the glove compartment, the door handles inside and out, and anything else he thought he might have touched.

  He looked around the garage, the only light now coming in between the blades of an exhaust fan, dust drifting like a mist in its faint rays. Gus wiped off the ignition key, then went around to the side and back doors of the van. He tried the handles, just to see. They were locked.

  He thought about it a moment, and then curiosity got the better of him. He tried the key.

  The locks were different from the ignition. Part of him was relieved.

  Terrorists, he thought. Could be I’m a fucking terrorist now. Driving a van full of explosives.

  What he could do was drive the van back out of here. Park it outside the nearest police precinct, leave a note on the windshield. Have them see if it’s anything or nothing.

  But these fuckers had his address. His madre’s address. Who were they?

  He got angry, a heat flare of shame shooting up his back. He pounded the meat of his fist once against the side of the white van, demonstrating his dissatisfaction with the arrangement. A satisfying sound resounded within, breaking the silence. He gave up then, tossing the key onto the front seat and slamming the driver’s door with his elbow—another satisfying bang.

  But then—instead of getting quiet quickly again—he heard something. Or thought he did: something inside. With the last of the light eking in through the fan grate, Gus got right up to the locked back doors to listen, his ear almost touching the van.

  Something. Almost…like a stomach rumbling. That same kind of empty, roiling hunger. A stirring.

  Ah, what the fuck, he decided, stepping back. The deed is done. So long as the bomb goes off below 110th Street, what do I care?

  A dull but distinct bang from inside the van rocked Gus back a step. The paper bag containing the second cerveza slipped from underneath his arm, and the can burst and sprayed beer over the gritty floor.

  The spraying faded to a dull foaming, and Gus bent to gather up the mess, then stopped, crouching, his hand on the soaked bag.

  The van listed ever so slightly. Its undercarriage springs pinged once.

  Something had moved or shifted inside.

  Gus straightened, leaving the burst beer on the ground and moving backward, shoes scraping the grit. A few steps away, he reset himself, willing himself to relax. His trick was to think that someone was watching him lose his cool. He turned and walked calmly to the closed garage door.

  The spring creaked again, putting a hitch in his step, but not halting him.

  He reached the black panel with a red plunger switch next to the door. He hit it with the heel of his hand, and nothing happened.

  He hit it two more times, first slow and easy, then hard and fast, the spring action on the plunger sticking as though from disuse.

  The van creaked again, and Gus did not allow himself to look back.

  The garage door was made of faceless steel, no grip handles. Nothing to pull. He kicked it once and the thing barely rattled.

  Another bang from inside the van, almost answering his own, followed by a severe creak, and Gus rushed back to the plunger. He hit it again, rapid-fire, and then a pulley whirred and the motor clicked and the chain started running.

  The door began lifting off the ground.

  Gus was outside before it was halfway up, scuttling up onto the sidewalk like a crab and then quickly catching his breath. He turned and waited, watching the door open, hold there, and then go back down again. He made certain it closed tightly and that nothing emerged.

  Then he looked around, shaking off his nerves, checking his hat—and walked to the corner, guilty fast, wanting to put another block between him and the van. He crossed to Vesey Street and found himself standing before the Jersey barriers and construction fences surrounding the city block that had been the World Trade Center. It was all dug out now, the great basin a gaping hole in the crooked streets of Lower Manhattan, with cranes and construction trucks building up the site again.

  Gus shook off his chill. He unfolded his phone at his ear.

  “Felix, where are you, amigo?”

  “On Ninth, heading downtown. Whassup?”

  “Nothing. Just get here pronto. I’ve done something I need to forget about.”

  Isolation Ward, Jamaica Hospital Medical Center

  EPH ARRIVED AT the Jamaica Hospitel Medical Center, fuming. “What do you mean they’re gone?”

  “Dr. Goodweather,” said the administrator, “there was nothing we could do to compel them to remain here.”

  “I told you to post a guard to keep that Bolivar character’s slimy lawyer out.”

  “We did post a guard. An actual police officer. He looked at the legal order and told us there was nothing he could do. And—it wasn’t the rock star’s lawyer. It was Mrs. Luss the lawyer. Her firm. They went right over my head, right to the hospital board.”

  “Then why wasn’t I told this?”

  “We tried to get in touch with you. We called your contact.”

  Eph whipped around. Jim Kent was standing with Nora. He looked stricken. He pulled out his phone and thumbed back through his calls. “I don’t see…” He looked up apol
ogetically. “Maybe it was those sunspots from the eclipse, or something. I never got the calls.”

  “I got your voice mail,” said the administrator.

  He checked again. “Wait…there were some calls I might have missed.” He looked up at Eph. “With so much going on, Eph—I’m afraid I dropped the ball.”

  This news hollowed out Eph’s rage. It was not at all like Jim to make any mistake whatsoever, especially at such a critical time. Eph stared at his trusted associate, his anger fizzling out into deep disappointment. “My four best shots at solving this thing just walked out that door.”

  “Not four,” said the administrator, behind him. “Only three.”

  Eph turned back to her. “What do you mean?”

  Inside the isolation ward, Captain Doyle Redfern sat on his bed, inside the plastic curtains. He looked haggard; his pale arms were resting on a pillow in his lap. The nurse said that he had declined all food, claiming stiffness in his throat and persistent nausea, and had rejected even tiny sips of water. The IV in his arm was keeping him hydrated.

  Eph and Nora stood with him, masked and gloved, eschewing full barrier protection.

  “My union wants me out of here,” said Redfern. “The airline industry policy is, ‘Always blame pilot error.’ Never the airline’s fault, over-scheduling, maintenance cutbacks. They’re going to go after Captain Moldes on this one, no matter what. And me, maybe. But—something doesn’t feel right. Inside. I don’t feel like myself.”

  Eph said, “Your cooperation is critical. I can’t thank you enough for staying, except to say that we’ll do everything in our power to get you healthy again.”

  Redfern nodded, and Eph could tell that his neck was stiff. He probed the underside of his jaw, feeling for his lymph nodes, which were quite swollen. The pilot was definitely fighting off something. Something related to the airplane deaths—or merely something he had picked up over the course of his travels?

  Redfern said, “Such a young aircraft, and an all-around beautiful machine. I just can’t see it shutting down so completely. It’s got to be sabotage.”

  “We’ve tested the oxygen mix and the water tanks, and both came back clean. Nothing to indicate why people died or why the plane went dark.” Eph massaged the pilot’s armpits, finding more jelly-bean-size lymph nodes there. “You still remember nothing about the landing?”

  “Nothing. It’s driving me crazy.”

  “Can you think of any reason the cockpit door would be unlocked?”

  “None. Completely against FAA regulations.”

  Nora said, “Did you happen to spend any time up in the crew rest area?”

  “The bunk?” Redfern said. “I did, yeah. Caught a few z’s over the Atlantic.”

  “Do you remember if you put the seat backs down?”

  “They were already down. You need the leg room if you’re stretching out up there. Why?”

  Eph said, “You didn’t see anything out of the ordinary?”

  “Up there? Not a thing. What’s to see?”

  Eph stood back. “Do you know anything about a large cabinet loaded into the cargo area?”

  Captain Redfern shook his head, trying to puzzle it out. “No idea. But it sounds like you’re on to something.”

  “Not really. Still as baffled as you are.” Eph crossed his arms. Nora had switched on her Luma light and was going over Redfern’s arms with it. “Which is why your agreeing to stay is so critical right now. I want to run a full battery of tests on you.”

  Captain Redfern watched the indigo light shine over his flesh. “If you think you can figure out what happened, I’ll be your guinea pig.”

  Eph nodded their appreciation.

  “When did you get this scar?” asked Nora.

  “What scar?”

  She was looking at his neck, the front of his throat. He tipped his head back so that she could touch the fine line that showed up deep blue under her Luma. “Looks almost like a surgical incision.”

  Redfern felt for it himself. “There’s nothing.”

  Indeed, when she switched off the lamp, the line was all but invisible. She turned it back on and Eph examined the line. Maybe a half inch across, a few millimeters thick. The tissue growth over the wound appeared quite recent.

  “We’ll do some imaging later tonight. MRI should show us something.”

  Redfern nodded, and Nora turned off her light wand. “You know…there is one other thing.” Redfern hesitated, his airline pilot’s confidence fading for a moment. “I do remember something, but it won’t be of any use to you, I don’t think…”

  Eph shrugged almost imperceptibly. “We’ll take anything you can give us.”

  “Well, when I blacked out…I dreamed of something—something very old…” The captain looked around, almost ashamedly, then started talking in a very low voice. “When I was a kid…at night…I used to sleep in this big bed in my grandmother’s home. And every night, at midnight, as the bells chimed in the church nearby, I used to see a thing come out from behind a big old armoire. Every night, without fail—it would poke out its black head and long arms and bony shoulders…and stare at me…”

  “Stare?” asked Eph.

  “It had a jagged mouth, with thin, black lips…and it would look at me, and just…smile.”

  Eph and Nora were both transfixed, the intimacy of the confession and its dreamlike tone both unexpected.

  “And then I would start screaming, and my grandmother would turn on the light and take me to her bed. It went on for years. I called him Mr. Leech. Because his skin…that black skin looked just like the engorged leeches we used to pick up in a nearby stream. Child psychiatrists looked at me and talked to me and called it ‘night terrors’ and gave me reasons not to believe in him, but…every night he came back. Every night I would sink under my pillows, hiding from him—but it was useless. I knew he was there, in the room…” Redfern grimaced. “We moved out some years later and my grandmother sold the armoire and I never saw it again. Never dreamed of it again.”

  Eph had listened carefully. “You’ll have to excuse me, Captain…but what does this have to do with…?”

  “I’m coming to that,” he said. “The only thing I remember between our descent and waking up here—is that he came back. In my dreams. I saw him again, this Mr. Leech…and he was smiling.”

  INTERLUDE II

  THE BURNING HOLE

  HIS NIGHTMARES WERE ALWAYS THE SAME: ABRAHAM, OLD or young, naked and kneeling before the huge hole in the ground, the bodies burning below as a Nazi officer moved down the row of kneeling prisoners, shooting them in the back of the head.

  The burning hole was behind the infirmary in the extermination camp known as Treblinka. Prisoners too sick or too old to work were taken through the white-painted barracks with a red cross painted on it, and into the hole they went. Young Abraham saw many die there, but he himself came close to it only once.

  He tried to avoid notice, worked in silence, and kept to himself. Each morning he pricked his finger and smeared a drop of blood on each cheek in order to appear as healthy as possible at roll call.

  He first saw the hole while repairing some shelving in the infirmary. At age sixteen, Abraham Setrakian was a yellow patch, a craftsman. He curried no favor; he was no one’s pet, merely a slave with a talent for woodwork that, in a death camp, was a talent for living. He had some value for the Nazi Hauptmann who used him without mercy, without regard, and without end. He raised barbed-wire fences, crafted a library set, repaired the railways. He carved elaborate pipes for the Ukrainian guard captain at Christmastime in ’42.

  It was his hands that kept Abraham away from the hole. At dusk he could see its glow, and sometimes from his workshop the smell of flesh and petrol mixed with sawdust. As his fear took hold of his heart, so did the hole take residence there.

  To this day, Setrakian still felt it in him, every time fear took hold—whether crossing a dark street, closing his shop at night, or upon waking from the nightmares—
the tatters of his memories revived. Himself kneeling, naked, praying. In his dreams he could feel the mouth of the gun pressing against his neck.

  Extermination camps had no function other than killing. Treblinka was disguised to look like a train station, with travel posters and timetables, and greenery woven into the barbed wire. He arrived there in September 1942 and spent all of his time working. “Earning his breath,” he called it. He was a quiet man, young but well raised, full of wisdom and compassion. He helped as many prisoners as he could and prayed in silence all the time. Even with the atrocities he witnessed daily, he believed that God was watching over all men.

  But one winter night, in the eyes of a dead thing, Abraham saw the devil. And understood the ways of the world to be different from what he’d thought.

  It was past midnight and the camp was as quiet as Setrakian ever saw it. The forest murmur had quieted down and the cold air was splitting his bones. He shifted quietly in his bunk and gazed blindly at the darkness surrounding him. And then he heard it—

  Pick-pick-pick.

  Exactly as his bubbeh had said…it sounded exactly as she’d said…and for some reason that made it all the more frightful…

  His breath vanished and he felt in his heart the burning hole. In a corner of the barracks, the darkness moved. A Thing, a towering gaunt figure peeled off from the inky depths and glided over his sleeping comrades.

  Pick-pick-pick.

  Sardu. Or a Thing that once had been him. Its skin was shriveled and dark, blending with the fold of its dark, loose robes. Much like an animated blotch of ink. The Thing moved effortlessly, a weightless phantom gliding across the floor. Its talonlike toenails scraped the wood ever so softly.

  But—it couldn’t be. The world was real—evil was real, and surrounding him all the time—but this could not be real. This was a bubbeh meiseh. A bubbeh—

  Pick-pick-pick…