Afterlife - Douglas Clegg [94]
“Julie, you’ve been through an enormous shock,” Eleanor said, taking a step toward her.
Julie turned the gun on her. “Back, Eleanor.”
“Nell, please,” Hut said. He stood still, his arms outstretched. “Julie. You’re the love of my life. I hated being separated from you.”
“You came to me at night,” she said. “You Streamed or you broke in or you did something. And you raped me while I was sleeping.”
“In your dreams, you told me you wanted me inside you,” he said. “I asked, and you said yes.”
“Because I thought it was a dream,” she said. “Where’s Livy. I want to see her.”
“You can’t right now,” the red-haired young woman said from the back of the hall. “She can’t,” she added, turning to the middle-aged thinning-haired man. “Can she?”
“Oh my God,” Julie gasped, nearly losing her balance. “You killed her. You already killed her.”
Everyone remained still in the room. No one spoke.
“She’s only sleeping,” Hut finally said, gently. “You have to believe that.”
He motioned to Dr. Glennon on the stairs to move out of the way. “It’s all right,” he said. “Julie, let’s go upstairs. She’s upstairs now. You can be with her.”
5
At the open door to what she had assumed would be a bedroom, Julie glanced back at Hut, who was close behind her. She kept the revolver ready, because she was determined that somehow, some way, she would see Livy and Matt through this. Her life didn’t really matter anymore. Her children were all that mattered. She could shoot at least two of them if she had to, and it might buy enough time to get Livy out to the car, and get her cell phone in the glove compartment and call the police as she drove away. If she believed in what they were doing, they wouldn’t really hurt Matt. They couldn’t, if it was true. If it was true, Matt was already resurrected from the dead. Once the police came back—and she’d tell them that they had kidnapped her children, she wouldn’t tell the police about psychics and resurrections and Ability X Y or Z. She would be sane. She would stop this, somehow.
She glanced back to Hut, but he wasn’t threatening her at all. She had a pang in her gut—as if the bond of their marriage still existed and was causing her pain. Fuck that. Fuck it. He’s a murderer. He’s insane. He’s a zombie. He’s a psychic vampire. He’s not even real. He can’t be. But even if he is, he believes everything he says.
Hut said, “Let me tell you about life after death. The only way to overcome it is to have the talent and knowledge, and 99.999 percent of human beings don’t have it and never will. And many of those who have it never use it. I suppose a few have, and have been elevated to the level of gods. But there’s no God, Julie. No matter what Diamant told you about the human soul. There’s no soul except for life in the flesh. The brain is the seat of power.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re a liar. You and your doctors from Hell.” She glanced into the room, but could not yet bring herself to go in.
“Every obstacle, baby, contains the seed of its own destruction. Within my being is something more powerful than the horizon we call death. It’s not any goony theory of magic or miracles. It’s simply a process that can most likely be described scientifically. My only understanding of it is that I have it. That my brain did not die when my body did, and that there is something that comes from my mind and manages to overcome what you and others call death. I was not really dead. Perhaps no one is, but the poor bastards don’t have the ability to summon themselves back to the world of the living. And so, they rot and putrefy. But my mind communicates life, back into me. Back into my bones. Into my flesh. Not from magic, not from the spirit world. But from an Ability that others have. Others have and don’t always even know they have it. It’s like a vacuum. Sucking at you. Drawing you away. Drawing you out. It’s passing from one state of consciousness into another. It’s the body that rots. Consciousness can move molecules. Consciousness can raise the dead. I’ve done it. But I’m still not sure how it happens.