Oscar extracted himself from the gathered mourners and dawdled back to the terrace. He sat on the steps. A moment later Holly arrived with Kate and said, ‘My mother is feeling a little under the weather. Could you see her upstairs, Oscar? I’ve got to go get lunch on the table.’
Oscar took Kate’s arm and they went slowly upstairs. ‘I don’t know what’s got into me,’ she said. ‘I’m so sleepy. It’s as if I took a pill.’
When they got to her room Oscar helped the old lady remove her shoes. He rolled the duvet down and left her to get into bed.
Jacob appeared. He had come to take a look at Kate. Oscar hovered a moment to see whether Jacob looked worried, but Kate and he were talking comfortably, so Oscar went downstairs and asked whether he could carry his food into the atrium and play a bit of Bioshock before the meeting. ‘Theresa said something about a meeting, didn’t she?’
When the meal was over Belle followed Holly into the kitchen with a stack of dishes. She was about to say, ‘You’ll want to go check on your mum. I can do these straight after the meeting.’ But when she came in she found Holly emptying the bread basket by cramming the last few slices of today’s none-too-successful batch of herb bread into her mouth. Holly caught Belle’s eye and gave a grimace. She mimed that she couldn’t talk, and Belle said, ‘Well—I’m going to take my seat. They’re all in a fierce rush.’ It occurred to Belle that Holly’s gluttony was perhaps a response to Lily’s having effectively starved herself.
Holly swallowed hard and offered the final slice to Belle.
‘No thanks.’
Holly said, ‘Take it to Oscar. He didn’t have nearly enough.’
Belle took the bread and put it down by Oscar on the arm of the sofa. ‘Thanks,’ Oscar said. His eyes didn’t leave the screen. His thumbs flashed on the controller, and the fine muscles in his forearms seethed.
‘Aren’t you coming to the meeting?’
‘Nah. I’m going to skip it. I’ve got this boss on the ropes. If he gets to that health machine he can heal. But he’s not going to get to that health machine.’
Belle went into the conference room. The table was clear and smelled of wood polish. All the candles were gone from the room. Belle took her seat and gave Oscar and Holly’s apologies.
Jacob was writing on the whiteboard—one bullet point, then, Mental Health vs. Privacy. He replaced the cap on the pen. ‘We’re going to have to talk about this.’
‘Communicating with the outside—that’s our first order of business,’ Sam said.
‘Our first order of business is communicating with each other,’ Jacob said. He favoured Sam with a reproachful look. ‘You talked to the man in black, and then stayed away for five days. He only held you prisoner for a single night, Sam. If you’d come back earlier with news—any kind of news—it would almost certainly have helped Curtis’s state of mind. And Lily’s. They would have had something to think about, instead of obsessing—’
‘Hang on, Jacob,’ Bub said. ‘You told us that Curtis’s death was natural causes. Some skin thing that got out of hand.’
‘Jacob—Sam is the only person here with pre-existing mental health problems,’ Belle said. ‘You can’t blame her because Curtis insisted on living by himself and had no help on hand when he needed it.’
‘What I’m saying is that we can’t lose anyone else like we lost Curtis and Lily,’ Jacob said. ‘We need some process in place to guard against it. We can’t have people sliding unchecked into self-destructive behaviours.’
‘Curtis didn’t want us to look after him,’ Bub said. ‘He wouldn’t let us. And what happened to him—a complication from a skin infection—could have happened in everyday life.’ He gestured at the smeared blue of the bay. ‘Only, out there he’d have had the safety net of a hospital.’
William said, ‘Sam, you have to tell us what you know.’
‘That’ll be good for our mental health,’ Sam said.
‘Belle and I are sick of this,’ Bub said. ‘We want to get on with our lives!’
‘So Belle thinks you’re a safe pair of hands?’ Warren said. ‘I’m asking on behalf of Jacob and his mental health.’
‘It’s not my mental health I’m worried about,’ Jacob said.
Warren said, ‘That’s right. You don’t need to worry. You have faith. It’s your drug of choice.’
Theresa put a hand on Warren’s arm. ‘We can do this calmly and politely.’
Belle bent over and clasped her arms around her stomach. ‘Yes, let’s not be angry. It’s giving me indigestion.’
‘Come on, Sam,’ Theresa urged. ‘You have to talk to us. There’s no point in keeping secrets.’
‘Yes, Sam. What is it we don’t know?’ Bub was loud and insistent.
Sam folded her hands before her on the table and stared off into space. She said, ‘We’re trapped inside the No-Go with an invisible monster that feeds on suffering and hasn’t finished feeding.’ She focused her eyes and looked around the table, and into each of their appalled faces. ‘It cleans its plate,’ she said.
The room was silent. Sam continued. ‘The man in black follows the monster from world to world doing damage control by closing it in a quarantine. The No-Go is formed by machines he has, but is powered by the monster. The machines are inside the No-Go, which won’t disappear till the monster leaves. And the monster won’t leave till it’s killed us. All of us, except the man in black, who is the descendant of people who survived an attack by a similar monster. He’s invisible to it, and immune to the Madness. The Madness, which is like a marinade the monster likes to use.’
‘Jesus, Sam!’ Bub said, apparently as horrified by Sam’s description as the information itself.
Sam continued, remorseless. ‘The monster picks at people’s loose threads—their faults, like Warren’s fondness for mind-altering substances; and their virtues, like Lily’s driven need to stay in shape.’
‘Hey,’ said Warren, ‘I’m sitting right here.’
Belle abruptly craned forward and vomited on the tabletop. The people opposite her quickly pushed their chairs back and Theresa rushed to get a towel. Bub took hold of Belle’s head while she retched, then, once she’d stopped, he sat on the floor and pulled her down into his lap.
‘Oh shit,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’
Theresa returned with a roll of paper towels and several wet cloths. Sam took them from Theresa and began to clean the table, while Theresa wiped Belle’s face and hair. Jacob knelt down by Belle, felt for her pulse, and started counting it against the second hand on his watch face.
‘It’s shock,’ Bub said.
‘I was feeling sick already.’
‘Sorry,’ Sam said. ‘But you kept saying “Tell me”, and it turned out that telling was a bit like vomiting—hard to stop.’
‘I feel sick too,’ Warren said.
‘And I feel weak and grey and depressed—but that’ll be the death sentence,’ Bub said, acid. Then he looked penetratingly at Sam. ‘The man wanted to know how you knew his monster was there. And after we’d talked to him he also wanted to know how you came through the Madness alive. He did ask, didn’t he? When you were with him he asked you how you know the monster is there?’
‘We didn’t get to that.’
‘The man doesn’t know she’s got two personalities—gentle Sam and shrewd Sam,’ said William.
‘He kind of does now, because when he came with Lily’s body we explained it to him,’ said Bub.
‘But Dissociative Identity Disorder is psychological, not neurological,’ Jacob said. ‘The Madness was neurological. It killed people once it was done with them—just flat-out killed them. Sam couldn’t escape being killed by switching to her type A personality. The man in black is just fooled by the coincidence. He thinks it means something, that it’s fate, not just circumstantial. But I think it’s like those plane crashes with only
one survivor where everyone says God’s responsible. And believe me—if I thought those things were God, I’d acknowledge Him. But it’s science. Those sole survivors are all kids with low body mass, or skinny flight attendants strapped in near the galley—wreckage riders cushioned by the bit of plane they fall inside.’
‘Okay,’ Bub said, ‘what’s the science of Sam being spared going crazy?’
‘I’m talking about chance and circumstance.’
‘If anything can save us it’ll be science,’ Bub said.
Jacob said, ‘No, Bub. I believe in the afterlife. I am never without hope.’
Bub frowned mightily.
‘I don’t get what you’re saying either, Jacob,’ Theresa said. ‘You were explaining why the man in black was barking up the wrong tree and then suddenly you’re all plane crashes and heaven.’
William said, ‘Sam didn’t survive by chance, Jacob. There’s something about her that brought her through it.’ He stared at Sam. ‘What is it about you?’
‘Actually, that’s a good question,’ Theresa said.
Jacob said, ‘My point is that I don’t need to think Sam’s singularity represents an escape clause for us. If what you say is true and we’re all screwed then prayer is the answer. We pray for salvation. Not the salvation of our bodies, but our souls.’
‘Bro, I’m so disappointed in you,’ Bub said to Jacob.
‘Maybe people who are crazy can’t go mad,’ Dan said. ‘Sam is crazy, right? Like the guy in Fight Club.’
‘So if we all contrive to go nuts we’ll be spared going nuts,’ said Bub.
‘We have our hope of Heaven,’ Jacob insisted.
Dan gripped his shaved scalp. ‘What about my kids?’ he said. ‘My kids need their dad!’
Belle said to William, ‘Are we all going to go mad?’
Then they were all shouting. Belle and Jacob and Dan were in tears. Then Dan got up and staggered out of the room.
The world had gone grey. Bub gripped his head. It was aching. His mouth kept filling with saliva. He’d opened it to say something, and had slobbered on his own chin. He was watching Sam, who had dropped the fouled wads of paper towel into a wastepaper bin and was wiping her hands on her shirt. He said, ‘Wow. Sam. You have a halo. It’s all around your body—a yellow light.’ He looked around the table. ‘Hang on. Other people have halos too, and so does the table. Hey. Is that it? Is that the monster?’
Several others panicked: ‘Is what the monster?’
Bub: ‘I’m not even scared. Shouldn’t I be?’
Theresa: ‘Jacob—my throat is bone dry. What’s wrong with us?’
Jacob’s tongue was burning. His upper arms and neck itched. He took Belle’s wrist again and asked her how she was. ‘I’ll adjust,’ she said. ‘Does William mean to say we have no hope?’ She looked apologetic. ‘Sorry Jacob, I can’t do heaven.’
Jacob turned to William. William was white. His eyes were closed. He was pinching the bridge of his nose. Jacob said sharply, ‘William!’
William blinked at him. ‘Fuck.’ He swore succinctly and politely.
Jacob looked around the room. Sam had begun scratching fiercely. Warren was holding his abdomen and wiping drool off his chin.
Jacob took Theresa’s arm. He pulled her to her feet and hustled her away through the atrium and into the manager’s office, out of earshot. He told Theresa to find Holly. ‘She didn’t come to the meeting.’
‘Neither did Kate. Or Oscar.’
Jacob said again that he wanted to speak to Holly. He opened the cabinet that contained his file boxes of medicines and almost immediately found what he was looking for. Ipecac. A single twenty-tablet packet.
‘I had a bulimic friend who used to take that,’ Theresa said. She pressed the back of her wrist against her mouth, belched, and swallowed. She said she had to go to the bathroom.
‘Get Holly.’
Theresa nodded, her mouth clamped firmly closed. She headed out the door.
For a moment Jacob considered the packet—considered dosages. But he wasn’t sure yet. He needed more symptoms. If it was food poisoning, ipecac wouldn’t be any help.
He headed towards the conference room. Its doorway seemed to surge towards him like a wave. All the sounds grew louder. From outside he heard what he thought might be the summer’s first cicada. Then the sound was sucked back, and Jacob staggered and doubled over. His stomach gave a heave, but he didn’t vomit. Warren appeared beside him, helped him to a seat, then sat heavily beside him. ‘I reckon we’ve been poisoned,’ Warren said.
Jacob waited for the spasm to pass. He told Warren to go to bed. Promised he’d be up shortly. Then he noticed the dark, shadowy, expectant form on the screen of the big TV—Oscar’s avatar, breathing but motionless—and the dropped controller. He told Warren to find Oscar, who was probably in the downstairs bathroom.
Jacob continued to the conference room. He saw that several other people had taken themselves off to a bathroom or to bed. William was next to Sam, a hand on her back. She had her head down between her knees and her hands clasped over her mouth.
Jacob asked Belle how her back was. ‘You were the first to get sick,’ he said.
‘It’s my stomach,’ Belle gasped. ‘And I’m woozy and cold, and I have a headache. I feel like a wet noodle. What about my back?’
‘Do you have muscle spasms? Does the light seem very bright? Do sounds seem loud?’
‘No. I just feel like shit.’
Jacob asked Bub how he was.
‘Crook, bro.’ There were beads of sweat on Bub’s top lip.
Jacob opened the packet of ipecac and pushed a tablet out of its blister. He gave it to Bub. ‘I think you should probably vomit.’
Bub eyed the tablet with distaste.
‘Take it, and drink a couple of glasses of water.’
Theresa appeared at Jacob’s side. She said that Holly was in bed. ‘I couldn’t wake her. She’s clammy and her pulse is—I don’t know—slow, or weak, or something.’
Jacob gave Theresa a tablet. Then he took one himself. ‘Has Holly vomited?’ he said. Then, ‘Just take that, Theresa. I don’t know what the poison is, but this is poison.’
‘Food poisoning?’ Theresa asked. She was still holding the pill between her thumb and forefinger with her pinky cocked. ‘Do we take pills for food poisoning?’
‘Just take it.’ Jacob put a hand on Sam’s back. ‘Sam,’ he said. ‘Everyone will need a bowl or bucket and they should be in bed, keeping warm. Can you help me?’ His guts gave a spasm, and he stopped talking and breathed through his nose. The packet of pills was removed from his hand. It was William. William pushed a pill out, and put it in his own mouth. He gave another to Sam. She began to make her shaky way around the table, her hands resting on the back of every chair.
‘Everyone needs to take one,’ Jacob said. ‘I think.’ Then, ‘God help me.’
‘You’d rather wait?’ Theresa said.
‘I don’t know. If it’s strychnine then an emetic is the last thing we need.’
‘Jesus!’ Theresa said. ‘Strychnine!’ She wavered and drooped. Her face went grey.
Sam paused to put the tablet in her mouth. She said, very deliberately, ‘I’d better go before I pass out.’
‘Can everyone please get to their beds,’ Jacob said.
Dan came and leaned in the doorway, clutching its frame. He had taken his shoes and trousers off—probably in the toilet off the atrium. He had streaks of shit on his legs and socks. ‘Help me!’ he said, looking at Jacob. Then he slipped down the door frame and onto the floor.
There was a little burst of cold beside Jacob, and a waft of some scent, as clean and astringent as isopropylene. It was a little familiar, but Jacob couldn’t place it. The brain in his miserable, sluggish, chilled body tried to make sense of the scent as a new symptom, but he w
asn’t able to make olfactory hallucinations fit with any poison he knew.
He discovered that William was holding him. Sam had darted across the room to Dan. She looked Dan over—felt his pulse—put him on his back and checked his airway, then moved him into the recovery position. She turned to Jacob, her face pinkly healthy and stricken with puzzlement. She was looking to him for guidance. Then William let him go, and rushed outside to vomit. Jacob felt himself teeter, and lose his lower limbs, and then he didn’t have a leg to stand on. Sam caught him. She was there, and capable. He said, ‘Make sure everyone takes the ipecac. Make them vomit. They’ll need Lucozade once they have.’ He remembered that Kate wasn’t at the funeral breakfast. ‘Get Kate. She might not have eaten what we ate. She’ll be able to help.’
‘This box isn’t full, Jacob,’ Sam said. William had tossed her the box of ipecac before rushing out of the room. ‘Has someone already had a pill?’
Jacob was sure that he’d just pulled a full, sealed box of the drug from his filing cabinet dispensary. He had a moment of absolute dread. Perhaps ipecac was the poison—and they were all only feeling the results of a big dose of a simple emetic. But twenty tablets of ipecac between twelve people would be a mild dose. Besides, he was sure the box was full before he handed some out. And Sam had taken one herself, so why was she asking who’d had them?
Jacob found that he couldn’t count, couldn’t think; he felt stupid and cold and hollow. He seized Sam’s hand. ‘Make them vomit,’ he repeated, and passed out.
Kate woke up. Sam was leaning over her, shaking her gently. Kate roused herself and climbed out of bed. She contemplated her stockinged feet, and patted her hair into place.
Sam said, ‘Everyone is sick.’
Kate couldn’t seem to collect her wits. ‘What was that, dear? Who has taken ill?’
‘Everyone. How do you feel, Mrs McNeal?’
Of all the survivors, Kate thought that Sam was the one most likely to produce a dubious or garbled report of events. But Sam wasn’t prone to over-dramatisation. ‘You look perfectly fine,’ Kate said, sharply.