Then Stroud saw another zombie mechanically bend at the waist and lift the hammer. Behind him, coming from doorways and from behind trash cans, other zombies wielding bottles, sticks, bricks, cordless drills--anything they'd found at hand--were closing in on Stroud.
A man jumped from the car and shouted at Stroud, saying, "Here you are, Stroud! Get in!"
It was Nathan's aide, Lloyd Perkins. "We learned from the hospital that you had gone. Very foolish of you to leave on foot, Dr. Stroud."
"Just get us the hell out of here, Perkins."
Stroud leaped into the passenger side of Perkins's car. Perkins backed off the man he had hit when Stroud pushed him into his path, dragging the body half a block before it was released to the other zombies. Stroud watched them gather about the remains to stare dumbly down at it.
"The C.P.'s been in conference after conference on this thing since you and the others came out of the pit," said Perkins. "I've got to tell you, Stroud, everybody--I mean everybody in the city--is going nuts, and some are going nuts with fear."
"You think we made a mistake going down there, Lloyd?"
"Don't know that it made a difference either way, but the C.P.'s been monitoring your progress, along with Leonard's and Wisnewski--"
"How is Dr. Wisnewski?"
"For now he's safe; in a padded room at Bellevue."
"Poor man." Stroud heard a voice emanating from the steel plate in his head which told him to go to Wisnewski, that it was urgent.
"We've got more to worry about than Wisnewski at the moment. The whole city is going up for grabs."
"Take me to Bellevue. I've got to see Wisnewski now."
"I was sent here to bring you to Nathan, and that is what I'm going to do."
"Bellevue first, and then, as soon as I see the old man--"
Perkins pulled a .38 Smith & Wesson and lay it on his lap. "Dr. Stroud, you may pull a lot of weight in Chicago, but this is New York. You're going to see the C.P."
Perkins escorted him into a conference room where Nathan was discussing the state of affairs with the mayor and City Council. There were some perfunctory introductions before Stroud saw that Dr. Kendra Cline was also here. James Nathan told the others that Dr. Stroud was one of three archeologists who had gone into the pit to investigate the sunken ship.
"He is also the only man to have gone into coma induced by this ... this disease, and has come around," added Nathan. "Dr. Cline can speak more to that if you have any questions."
"Am I to understand that you have some natural immunity to the disease?" asked the mayor, a tall man with thinning gray hair and a wide girth. He had the look of a man who was playing poker with thieves and he knew he could not win.
"I never went into coma, Mayor. It was merely a blackout. Dr. Cline can verify that."
Kendra Cline pursed her lips and nodded. "It would seem that that is the case with Dr. Stroud, from all our findings."
"Then you never contracted the disorder in the first place?"
"No, sir."
"But Leonard did, and Dr. Wisnewski."
"In a manner of speaking," said Nathan. "Dr. Wisnewski's aberration took the form of madness."
"I am told he attempted to murder me with a pickax," said Stroud. "But that was not Dr. Wisnewski's doing."
"He was surrounded by witnesses, Dr. Stroud," said Perkins.
"Since I've come out of what Dr. Cline had taken for coma," said Stroud, "I have been attacked twice by ... by these controlled people. Dr. Wisnewski was not acting out of madness but control. Something is controlling this entire event."
This caused a general stir throughout the room. The mayor stood and paced the length of the table. "Dr. Stroud, do you have any idea what this ... this something is that is in control?"
"Only that it is beyond our normal reckoning, sir, and that without Wisnewski's help ... with Dr. Leonard gone ... I'm not at all sure we will understand what we are dealing with until it is too late."
"What do you propose, Doctor?"
"First, I would like Dr. Wisnewski released into my custody, and any and all objects that we brought out of the pit be returned to us for complete examination under controlled conditions--"
"You want us to release a man who attempted to murder you, into your custody?" asked one of the men seated around the table, but the mayor raised a hand and silenced him.
"Go on, Doctor."
"Under my guidance and care, perhaps Dr. Wisnewski and I can carry on with our original plan to defuse this situation."
"And what does that amount to, sir?"
"First and foremost, we must understand the enemy, understand the meaning of the ship ... how it came to be here, why. To understand the meaning of the ... of the bones inside her hull."
"Bones, like those you brought out?" asked Nathan. "Those were human bones."
"Exactly."
"I don't like it," said the deputy mayor, the man the mayor had silenced moments before. "Suppose Wisnewski attempts to kill Stroud again, and succeeds? And suppose the papers got hold of that, and--"
"To hell with the papers and your office, Dennis!" shouted the mayor. "This ... this is war. We've called in the National Guard, and we've declared martial law and a curfew." The mayor's face had gone red, but now he settled down again. "Stroud had Leonard's backing, Wisnewski's backing, and despite what some of us may have read or heard about Dr. Stroud, he appears our only hope in this matter. Whatever Pandora's box we've opened, a bazooka shot to the ship isn't going to close it, or restore the faculties of some nine hundred to a thousand people who've succumbed to this thing."
"Then you will accept my recommendation, sir?" asked James Nathan. "That we give Dr. Stroud carte blanche on this matter?"
"Up to a point, Nathan ... Stroud ... up to a point. We need results, and quickly. We need to show the public that we are acting to ward this thing off. To this end, Dr. Cline will assist you, Dr. Stroud, in any way she can."
"What?" asked Cline, taken totally by surprise. "Mayor Leamy! I don't work for the city of New York, and I am needed at St. Stephen's. I've got patients and tests and experiments to oversee."
"Dr. Wallace has already dispatched two of your colleagues to take over your duties," said Mayor Bill Leamy. "We've got to pursue this thing aggressively and from as many avenues as are opened to us, Dr. Cline. To that end I want you to monitor the progress of Dr. Wisnewski, and to give assistance wherever possible with this special approach. Is that understood?"
Stroud saw that she was fuming beneath the nod. "I will do what I can, but I won't take responsibility for the consequences."
"Good ... good," said Leamy, taking a deep breath. "Wiz is an old and dear friend of mine. I think it is time, Dr. Stroud, Nathan, that you go to him."
Arthur Wisnewski's frustration rose and rose and rose as he beat his head against the padded door to the chamber the demons had thrown him into. He feared their return, feared what they intended for him once they returned, feared they intended to feed off his body as if he were a cockroach for them to swallow, so horrid and vile was their crablike appearance, and the thing that Stroud had become--so hideous that Wisnewski had felt his heart grip itself and squeeze as the blood suddenly pumped through his small body and he had lifted the pickax to dismantle the monster Stroud. The next time he saw Stroud, he would kill him.
He knew Stroud for what he was now ... knew that his true name was Esruad and that Esruad was to be destroyed. He didn't know what the name Esruad meant, other than its inherent evil. He had never heard the name before, but something in his mind triggered the explosive hatred for what was below Stroud's mask.