Still, he had a little time, and he went over to the cupboard in the dining room where Claire kept the boxes of photos that she had not had time to put into albums. He pulled out the top box and put it on the table, sorting through the pictures. He saw a photo of Megan when she was five, dressed as Princess Jasmine for Halloween; saw James at three, standing proudly in front of a fort he had built out of couch cushions. There were photos from a visit with Santa, from a trip they’d taken to the Albuquerque Zoo, from various birthday parties. He found one he’d forgotten about: himself and James at the county fair, going down the Super Slide side by side. Julian’s vision blurred as the tears came, and he’d never loved his wife or his children as much as he did at that moment.
He would never get to see Megan and James grow up, he realized, never get to go to their weddings, never get to show them these photos when they were adults, never get to see their children. It was a whole world he was going to miss, a whole life, and he was overwhelmed by a sense of loss so profound that he dropped the picture on the table, refusing to look at any more photos.
It was time, he decided.
He just had to figure out how to do it.
Hanging was out. He was afraid to go that way, and it was probably the rudest, cruelest thing he could do to his family. One of them would have to find his body, and that would be an image that would remain with the person for the rest of his or her life.
Likewise stabbing himself, which he probably wouldn’t even be able to get through.
The old M*A*S*H song was wrong, he thought. Suicide wasn’t painless.
Poison was probably the best. Or an overdose. He went into the kitchen, looking through the cupboard where they kept the medicine and vitamins. There were a couple of leftover prescription bottles from some of the kids’ winter illnesses, but they weren’t a family that kept sleeping pills around or had any heavy-duty medications. Under the sink he found Drano, and in the laundry room was bleach, but both of those would be nasty, and he wasn’t sure whether they would kill him or he would throw them up and find himself in the hospital with a lot of explaining to do.
He returned to the cupboard to check again and found a full bottle of Advil as well as a bottle of the baby aspirin that Claire had him take with his vitamins. Could he overdose on those? He read the Advil warning labeclass="underline" “The risk of heart attack or stroke may increase if you use more than directed.”
Yessss.
It was the voice he’d heard before.
Apparently, he was being watched more closely than he thought.
Julian picked up the Advil bottle, then paused. Was his mind being read? It seemed that way. Which meant that it knew what he was planning to do and wasn’t worried about it. Did that mean his scheme wouldn’t work?
He didn’t dwell on it, thought about something else, the price of gas, the president’s poll numbers, trying to keep his mind clear so he wouldn’t be found out. Briefly, he considered running away, dashing out of the house and hauling ass down the street. But he knew that wouldn’t work. He’d felt the power of that thing. It had grown so strong that it had physically changed the interior of his house. It would kill him before he got out the door this time.
Then it would go after Claire, Megan and James.
He needed to put an end to it once and for all.
Julian got a glass out of the dish rack, filled it with water and opened the Advil bottle. It was almost new. The label said it contained a hundred tablets. He poured several into his hand, washed them down with water. Did it again. And again, and again, until the bottle was empty. Feeling nothing yet, he wandered through the dining room and into the living room.
He thought of leaving a detailed note, being completely clear and unambiguous, because he didn’t want there to be any questions or misunderstandings, didn’t want Claire or the kids to blame themselves. This was going to be tough enough for them without the added burdens of guilt and confusion. There was no time to sit down and write a letter, however. He needed to act quickly before it figured out his plan. That was why he was still trying to shield his thoughts, trying not to think about what he was thinking, trying to concentrate on superfluous matters. His plan would work only if he was allowed to carry it out, if he maintained the element of surprise. He couldn’t waste time penning a letter to his family—and he couldn’t explain in the letter what he wanted to explain, because then it would know, too.
Besides, Claire and the kids wouldn’t know he had committed suicide. They would think that the creature in their house had killed him. As hard as that would be for them to accept, it was still better than the truth.
He looked to his left. On the sideboard was a photo he had taken of Claire and the kids at the hot-air-balloon festival a few years back. Claire had had longer hair, and was wearing jeans shorts that no longer fit her and a T-shirt that her sister had brought back from Santa Fe. James was missing his two front teeth, and Megan was smiling in that innocent way she used to have but that she’d lost sometime in the past few years. The picture made him sad, not only for what he was going to miss but for what was already gone.
He took out the picture of Miles he’d been carrying in his pocket, leaning it up against the balloon-festival photo. Miles was next to James, and when seen together, it was obvious the two of them were brothers.
Julian started crying. The tears burned hot on his cheeks, and he plopped down on the couch, feeling an odd lurch in his chest as he did so.
What was the last thing he had said to Claire? he wondered. It hadn’t been, “I love you,” though it should have been. It was something more mundane, like, “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” or, “Is there anything else you want me to bring back?”
He should call her now, say it to her, tell her that he loved her, but his cell phone was still in the car, where he’d thrown it on the seat, and even if the phones in the house worked, which was doubtful, his fingers weren’t up to the task of dialing. They felt fat, like overstuffed sausages, and when he tried to wiggle them, he found that he couldn’t.
He couldn’t move his left arm at all.
As his vision blurred, as he started to fade, he looked over at the pictures of his wife, his daughter, his sons. A final tear rolled down his cheek.
Good-bye, he thought.
Thirty-five
Struggling.
He was not himself anymore. There was no himself anymore. He grasped for purchase, trying to remember what he had been and figure out what he was now. He was a part of something but he was lost in it, sightless, adrift, with only the most rudimentary senses to guide him. Then he was touched and touching, energy flowing into him, through him, connecting him to everything, to all of it. The form he had taken was enormous and powerful, and he could sense within it the competing wills of the thousands who had come before him. He was them, they were he, and while this new form was unwieldy, almost ungovernable, he was determined to take charge, to be in control. It was imperative that he do so, though he could not remember why it was so important.
He stretched out.
There was no time here. Seconds could have passed or minutes or hours or days or months or years. It could be today, tomorrow or yesterday.
And suddenly …
He could see the house. He was in it, around it, part of it. He knew where he was and what he was and why he was here. In the living room, his body was still on the couch, where it had died, and he took care of it, made it disappear so no one would be able to find it, so his family would not have to see his corpse.