"Where is she?" he demanded.
The reaction was instantaneous. Some looked down at the floor uncertainly, others turned away. But one woman, Sarah, a friend of Julia's, found her voice and approached him sympathetically as she spoke.
"She is not here," she said softly. "They came for her about noon. They said they had found something wrong in her tests."
The words cut into Skyler. It was what he had feared all along on some level that he'd never articulated. "Something wrong"! That's what they always said. He felt his heart skip a beat and freeze up. The image of Patrick upon the slab rose before his eyes. Why did he let her do it? Why, why, why?
He turned and ran out the door into the storm. He no longer felt the rain or the ache in his side. He was surrounded by a numbness that seemed to extend into the air around him. He thought of only one thing: Julia. He had to find her. He had to see her. He had to save her.
Skyler entered the basement of the Big House through the same door that he and Julia had used only days before. This time he didn't worry about being seen or leaving signs of forced entry. He turned the knob and knocked the door open with his shoulder.
It was dark inside and he flicked on a light switch. The Records Room looked just as it had before. There was a pile of papers on top of one of the desks, held in place by a rock. He moved slowly now — not out of fear but out of dread. He walked across the room, tracing the same path he'd taken before when Julia had been seated at the computer. The vision of her sitting there came to him in a flash — her long dark hair, her bare shoulder when she'd taken off her shirt.
He came to the door of the operating room, felt the clammy, cold weight of the brass doorknob in his hand, steeled himself, and gave the door a shove.
Instantly, he saw the body.
A pale cone of light shone down from above, bathing it in a yellowish hue. She was naked, lying on her back, her hands at her sides. Her perfectly rounded neck was turned slightly. Her hair rippled out around her head, cascading onto the white metal table as if she were floating on a lake. Her features were serene and cold like porcelain: her brow unfurrowed, her eyes closed, her perfect nose tilting up slightly. She looked as if she were about to speak.
Skyler couldn't think, couldn't feel. He was past thinking and feeling. He walked in a daze slowly around the table and the cone of light that shone upon it, looking at the body, the one person he had loved with his life. And now he seemed strangely detached, unfeeling — as if it were too much, as if his mind refused to take in the information offered by his eyes. He reached out and touched her on the shoulder. The body was not cold.
It was then that he saw the incision, a dark red, angry cut beginning low down on one side. It curved around the belly, and he suddenly realized that part of her viscera was missing. That was why, come to think of it, the body seemed so small and shrunken. And now that his brain was functioning again on some primary level, his eyes began to function, too. They began to take in things, like the small pool of blood that had coagulated under the curve of her spine. And to see where it had dripped down onto the concrete floor, a little rivulet of red leading to the drain to one side of the table.
Skyler couldn't hear. He couldn't breathe. The shell of numbness was too thick — but it was about to break. He felt a spasm overtake him. It started at the base of his back and fishtailed upward through his spine, like a corkscrew drilling upward, exploding in a whiteness in his brain. Help! He heard the little voice again. Help, help! But it was no longer calling for her. Now it was calling for him.
He tried to think, to calm down. She had been operated upon — that much he could discern. Suddenly, the wave of incomprehension struck him again: the person that he loved, that precious body — cut into, hands moving inside of her, organs fondled and removed. The barbarians.
Gone. She's gone.
And as he thought it, he was conscious that it was the first thought he'd been able to have. He felt he was rushing to the surface from some numbing depths underwater. He had other thoughts. He knew that they would come to kill him next. But strangely, he did not feel afraid, because he was too much in shock and horror for that. The shell of numbness around him was still there — it was his friend.
Skyler steadied himself by leaning against a counter behind him. His eyes swiveled and held, now taking in everything. The counter was cluttered with medical implements, jars of liquids, cotton balls, syringes, a small saw whose teeth were covered in blood. He picked up a knife and held it, the blade, too, covered in blood. He began to breathe deeply again, taking in oxygen in gulps, like a runner after a race, and looked around again. In a corner was a metal pole on wheels, and hanging down from it, a bag and a tube. Nearby was another counter, and above it, rectangular basement windows hinged at the top, leading to the outside.
He saw the body again, and her death, the reality of her non-being, dealt him another body blow. It kept coming and coming, like being struck by the blades of a windmill. He grasped the counter and held on. He had an impulse. Should he pick her up? Should he wrap her up in something and carry her away? But to where?
Suddenly, he heard a sound, footsteps on stairs. He raced across the room to the door and turned a key and heard the lock click. He heard the footsteps approach the door on the other side. The doorknob turned, once at first, then twice in surprise, then insistently it began to rattle. Skyler bounded across the room, leapt onto the counter and pushed the bottom of the window. It opened out and he heard the raindrops smacking against the glass. He threw the knife outside, jumped headfirst into the window, held himself in place by his elbows, and wriggled upward. His feet swung wildly and struck the IV stanchion and sent it smashing to the floor. He squeezed harder, and suddenly he was outside in the pouring rain. On his knees, he looked back through the open window and saw the body lying in the cone of light. He pulled away just as the door cracked open with a tearing sound, an instant too soon to see who was there. He picked up the knife and ran, holding it upright, through the rain.
He decided to head north toward the forest, but he had to make one stop first. He burst into the lecture hall, empty and darkened in shadows, and ran up the central aisle to the podium. He stood before the portrait of Dr. Rincon, staring for a moment at the distant, familiar, unknowable face. Then he raised the knife and plunged it through the glass, smashing it and sending shards raining upon the floor. The blade went in deep, up to the hilt, and he pulled it out. Before he turned to run back outside, he noticed that a trickle of red blood—her blood—had spread on the black and white photograph. It looked as if the good doctor had taken a fatal blow right in the center of his chest.
If only it were true!
Chapter 6
Jesus Christ! Jude muttered to himself as he walked down York Avenue on his way to the interview.
An hour earlier, the city editor himself, no less, had used the loudspeaker to summon him to the city desk. This was a particularly denigrating way of handing out an assignment, perfected by the Mirror over generations of abusing employees. It compelled the reporter to walk past rows of competitors who wished him failure or ridicule — or, in many cases, both.
"Dead man walking," muttered a forty-year-old rewrite man out of the side of his mouth as Jude passed.