The recorder. That was what she’d been trying to remember. The video recorder her neighbor Bruce had agreed to loan her, no strings attached, he’d said with his blond, mustached smile. She’d slept with Bruce several times, but as always her work dominated her life and drove him away, or drove her away, or did whatever it tended to do, which she’d never really been able to figure out.
Another cup of coffee.
The camcorder! He’d left it just inside the door (still had his key, did he?). She checked the camera out. It was a tiny thing, no larger than a deck of cards, the very latest in microtechnology. When everything worked she set it on the chest of drawers in her bedroom so that it covered the entire length of her bed.
I never thought I’d be doing this kind of film, Janet thought tiredly that night as she removed her clothes before the camera, put on her nightgown, and got into bed. The red light on the camcorder kept her awake ten minutes longer than usual, but, finally, she slept.
Reminder: cop}’ tape segment with unexplained image sequence. See if Bruce knows how to slow down or enhance.
“No, Fred, it’s not tuberculosis or St. Louis encephalitis. It’s just a… bug. I think that’s the technical term. But thanks for calling, really. I’ve got to go now, I’m very tired. No, I’m not angry with you. No, I don’t need anything. No! I just need some rest, OK? Look, Fred, I’m not feeling well at all. I’m sorry I snapped at you. Will you cover my patients until I get back on my feet? Thanks. Yes, it is. Bye, now.”
Janet slammed the receiver down a little too hard. That man! When would he give it up? Dr. Fred Forester might be the most brilliant heart surgeon in the state, but he didn’t know the first thing about women. It seemed ironic to her now that she’d requested the recent transfer primarily in the hopes of learning under the tutelage of a man she had known, then, only by reputation.
She only wished it had stayed that way.
Now she had a headache, and she was so tired she could feel every muscle and tendon straining tight through her entire body. Yet the images on the television screen held her mesmerized. Time after time, she replayed the crucial seconds, the clock in the background of the frame clearly showing the time as 1:01 a.m.
And then the flash.
And the empty bed.
And, a long time later, the tape running out.
Damn, she thought. The tape was too short to record a whole night.
But something! Something! Now she knew it was reaclass="underline" the camcorder couldn’t suffer hallucinations. Unless she was hallucinating the image recorded by the camcorder...
No, she told herself, stop it. Stop running away from the truth.
Janet had been busy. She’d analyzed the blood samples she’d begun saving alter the second morning, and had determined that all the samples were human blood. Most mornings, she could represent every known blood type, plus one recurring one she’d never seen before.
Still, she told no one. When Paul called because she’d missed one of her regular check-ins, she told him she’d been sleeping. And when Bruce came by to help her with the camcorder, she kept her distance, perpetuating the viral deception. He showed her how to hook the recorder to her PC and further enhance the images, but she didn’t play the tape in his presence, even though his curiosity (about more than one thing) was obvious.
An hour later, Janet knew she’d have to bring someone else into this before long, whether she liked it or not. For while the enhanced images were blotchy and difficult to interpret, the dark, moving forms and the bright orange flashes made her feel threatened. There was something menacing about that half-second glimpse, as if somewhere things were happening at a frenzied pace, and vast energies were being released.
“Not yet,” she said aloud, startling herself. No, she couldn’t trust anyone else—not yet. She needed more information. The tape from last night showed a window.
Janet decided to look inside.
Reminder:don’t be afraid. Whatever’s happening has been happening for a week, and you’re still alive. Going crazy but still alive. The only thing that’s different this time is the camera. Question: then why am I still afraid?
The next morning, when Janet awoke, there was blood on her hands. But this time there was also blood spattered on the camcorder she’d clipped to the front of her nightgown.
Her head hurt even worse than usual as she went through her morning cleansing routine (as always, worrying about the chance of disease contagion from the blood). But she found herself humming as she toweled off. When she came out of the bathroom, the camcorder on the bed seemed to glow with importance. She teased herself, waiting long enough to make coffee and eat a granola bar. Then she could wait no longer.
PLAY.
The first hour of the tape showed nothing but darkness.
FAST FORWARD.
STOP.
PLAY.
The second hour was the same, except when she turned and the lens picked up the fuzzy blue outline of a pillow.
FAST FORWARD.
STOP.
PLAY.
And the third—blackness. She was beginning to fear the tape had been too short again, or the recorder had malfunctioned, or that this time, this one time, it hadn’t happened (though there was the blood...) when a bright white light exploded across the screen.
Long, dark shapes scissored forward, and the camera frame jerked to the side and down. At that angle, all that was visible was a gray, soot-covered surface bright with reflected, actinic light, and, enigmatically, two booted feet. The boots were glossy but worn, and the stance of the feet seemed unnaturally rigid.
They were big feet.
Then the camera bounced and a blur of gray shapes flashed by: blocky and angular but crumbling, like sand castles at high tide. Twice, a different shape, faster, flashier, crossed the field of view, but the light source, white and harsh, was confusing the camera’s electronics. The image came out flat and colorless, like looking at a negative.
Then the motion stopped.
A shadow crossed the camera, and then a tall, slender form stood out in the foreground. The man was in his forties, with streaks of gray in his sideburns and a face so rugged it made the sharp, darting eyes seem out of place. There were depths in those black, liquid eyes—depths of suffering and desperation and hopeless hope.
PAUSE.
“What the hell is this?” Janet crawled down onto the carpet, right up to the screen. The man was real enough. He was wearing some kind of military uniform. He was looking at something slightly above the camera, but then, coldly, Janet realized that if the camera hadn’t been jarred loose from her nightgown, the man was looking at her face.
Fear suddenly made her freeze inside. Something about that man was... familiar. For several seconds she was paralyzed, unable to even think, just remembering a feeling of being cold, both inside and out, colder than a dead person.
Finally she snapped out of it.
PLAY.
Now the man’s lips were moving. Janet suddenly realized the images were silent. Had she missed something on the camera? She turned up the volume, but there was only a soft hissing punctuated by patterns of faint clicking noises.
The man finished speaking and then the landscape was bobbing up and down in a way that told her she was walking. This continued for a time, with figures scurrying by and more of the big, lumbering shapes, and even, sometimes, a flash from the sky where something swift and metallic reflected that unearthly white light.
Presently, they reached their destination.
The madness began.
For three more hours, Janet watched the impossible images. Those were her own hands on the screen, no doubt of that. Their movements were too practiced, too familiar. Heart bypass. Kidney transplant. Amputation. One after another, the patients flowed beneath her busy hands. Shrapnel. Burns. Smoke inhalation. One after another, the procedures were performed. Cut. Remove. Stop the bleeding.