Afterlife - Douglas Clegg [93]
“You are good, Eleanor. Or Nell. Or whoever you are. You are good,” Julie said.
The man she knew as Dr. Glennon came out of a room down the hall. He spoke to Eleanor, “Well, I can’t say we didn’t expect this.”
“I know,” Eleanor said. “Hut’s been careless.”
Dr. Glennon nodded to Julie. “Mrs. Hutchinson, please, just think for a minute. I know you’ve gotten some mumbo-jumbo from that Diamant character. But he’s taken care of.”
“Did you give him some Xalax? Or Darmien? Something to make him sleep? Is that what you gave Matty, too?”
Dr. Glennon held up his hands, slightly defensively. “I know what that man told you, Mrs. Hutchinson. But there’s more to it. Believe me.”
Eleanor said, “Julie, we had to do it this way. We had to wait until Hut was fully himself again. He’s better than he was. He really is.”
“You people brought him back from the dead.”
“I would’ve thought you loved him enough,” Eleanor said, “to want him back. He has Ability X stronger than anyone we’ve known. You loved him. He loves you. He loves you, Julie. Surely, you’d want to be with him.”
“Not like this,” Julie said. “You’re a pack of fucking psychic vampires.”
Eleanor shot a look at Dr. Glennon, who went to sit down on the stairs to the second floor. He looked exhausted. Julie noticed sweat on his forehead. She was scaring them. Just a little. She didn’t know how they’d be scared. “You’re nothing but zombies.”
“Oh, Julie,” Eleanor tsked as if she were a child. “This is the human brain. It’s not mystical crap like Diamant believed. Project Daylight was a scam. They were trying to find out things to justify war. To justify invasion. To milk little children of their abilities. But we all learned, together. We learned. And we’ve put it into action.”
“You kill. You kill each other. You kill your own children. I didn’t even know you had children, Eleanor.”
Eleanor began to look at the revolver as if she wanted to grab it. Julie grinned. She was happy to feel that she had power in this situation.
“You’ve been in the Stream, Julie,” Eleanor said. “You know how life and death are definitions of the imperfect human brain. There is no death, Julie. There doesn’t need to be. Those of us with this ability can change how human beings exist. We can alter the course of the future.”
“Not all of you come back. Are you dead yet Eleanor?”
“I guess there’s no reasoning with you,” Eleanor said.
And then, Hut came around the corner, with others behind him. People she didn’t know—three or four of them. The red-headed woman from the video was there. Gina? Was that her name? She stood back with a middle-aged man who had tortoise-shell glasses on and thinning hair.
“Zombies,” she said.
“Baby,” Hut said, moving toward her too rapidly. He looked well rested. He looked healthy. He wore one of his favorite T-shirts, and blue jeans, and didn’t look like he was in his forties at all. He looked better than she remembered him looking. Life was in him.
“No, Hut,” she said. She raised the revolver. “I saw you shoot Michael Diamond.”
“He’s not dead, though,” Hut said. “He’s somewhere safe now. He won’t harm you again. And he won’t harm us.”
“You shot him. And he fell. If I shoot you, maybe I’ll feel good. Maybe it’s enough.”
“If you shoot me, will you shoot all of them?” Hut asked. “Will that get you what you want, Julie?
“Where’s Livy?”
Eleanor cleared her throat.
“Matt’s resting, upstairs,” Hut said. “You can go see him if you want.”
“You drugged him. You…you killed him…when he was practically a baby…you tested him,” Julie said.
“What is it you want, baby?” Hut asked. His eyes seemed kind. He didn’t look like the undead. He didn’t look like a vampire. He didn’t look as if he meant to hurt her. She hated him most for that. She tried to remember Michael Diamond’s words. Things he’d said. She tried to remember the feeling of Michael Diamond inside her and being inside him. The safety of it. The warmth. The complete connection between the two of them. “What is it you want?”
“I want my children.”
“Yes,” Hut said. Dr. Glennon looked up at him as if this were