Release Me (Stark Trilogy, #1)(137)

In the basement, through the cinder-block wall, they have built a tunnel fifty feet long and six-by-six-feet square, the sidewalls framed by two-by-four studs. It runs underneath the perimeter fence. It is big enough for them to roll their dirt bikes through to the other side.

In the basement there is also a Ping-Pong table and they have laid upon it their instruments of change: shotguns, machetes, chainsaws, gasoline and matches, baseball bats with spikes nailed into them. Next to it, on the wall, where a quilt once hung, they have hammered scalps. Fifty at last count. Of every color imaginable, but all reddened along the edges. Their own kind of craft.

The Tall Man stands before them now, in a black suit, with his arms held out, like some ghastly preacher. He has brought them supplies. Grenades, Glocks, M4s and M16s, a Heckler & Kock PSG1 sniper rifle, and so many crates of ammo, which an hour ago they hauled rattling down the stairs. There is more where this came from. And there are of course conditions to their little arrangement, as he calls it. They will not advertise their presence in the Ghostlands and they will not speak out about any governmental assistance. Their discretion is of course very much valued. And should he call upon them, and he may or may not call upon them, but if he should, they will do as he says. He may have a target, some concentric circles drawn on a paper map he might send them toward to slash through, or he may not. Only time will tell.

His voice is a slow baritone, every word clearly enunciated and separate from the next, notes sprung from a bassoon. “For now, you need not worry about whether what you’re doing is legal. You need only worry about whether it is right. And it is right. I would not be here otherwise.”

Max sits in the front pew, his elbows on his knees, his hands knotted in front of his face, a position of prayer. “Every now and then we get a call. Otherwise, we keep doing what we’re doing. And you’re backing us.”

“You are doing good work. I want to help you to continue to do good work.”

“No government interference?”

“In this uncivil twilight, we make our own choices, we wear our true faces.” And what a face he has, like chewed gum mashed onto a hot sidewalk, a face Max finds equally disturbing and reassuring—reassuring because what you see is what you get. He wears, like he says, his true face. The world would be easier if everyone wore their true face. That’s why he likes John Wayne movies. The villain wears a black hat; the good guy wears a white hat. You know where you stand. But anybody can be a lycan. Your neighbor, your cousin, your waiter, that girl giving you the eye at the post office. They fool you. They wear masks that hide how hairy they are on the inside. Now, at least, they are caged. The perimeter fence cages them. In that way, the Ghostlands might be the best thing that ever happened to this country. The soldiers are turning people away, but Max says let them in, let them all in, and then shoot them where they stand and burn them and scatter the bones.

He wants the Tall Man—who appears to be grinning, though it is hard to tell, his mouth hanging open and swallowing a shadow—to leave. Leave them, leave the weapons. But the Tall Man does not. For a long minute he studies Max with his lidless gaze.

“We good, then?” Max says.

At that the Tall Man tucks his hands in his pockets and gives them all one last assessing look before saying, “Go raise some hell.”





Chapter 57



NEAL DESAI NOTES the time on his wristwatch, 3:20. Seven hours since the generator coughed out. The green glowing face of his watch fades to black. He wonders how long it will be until its battery runs out, until time goes still for him as it has for so many others. He wonders how many clocks stopped at the minute of the blast and how many melted until the numbers were indecipherable. He hopes that his wife and daughter died like this—quickly, in a time-stopping flash—rather than winding down slowly, like him.

He is so hungry. He is not sure when he last ate. Two days ago, three? When he let the last of the rations dissolve on his tongue. His body feels as though it is eating itself. His wristwatch and his belt are notched as far as they can go, his belly concave beneath the canopy of his ribs.

He is not alone. He can feel the thing sitting on the counter, feel it as if it were alive. The vial. He hates it. It is the reason he spent so many thousands of hours in the lab. It is the reason he did not put a gun in his mouth and pull the trigger when the ground shook and the sky lit up and the alarms sounded, when he realized what had happened. It is the reason he has been holed up beneath the ground, waiting, waiting—for what, he no longer knows—his thoughts no longer coming together, frayed at the edges by hunger and isolation.

His whole life people have been telling him how smart he is, but he feels dumb now, too dumb to do it, to end it. For so long Sridavi has been his reason for living—the hours in the lab devoted to her, not to humanity, not to the alleged well-being of the nation, not to any political cause, or so he tells himself, now that she is gone. Now that he lives for the vial, the vaccine.



He was watching television when it happened. Jet-lagged from his time in the Republic. Weary of talking to reporters about the assassination attempt on Chase Williams. He only wanted to tune out. But every station played news of the election and no matter how many times he flipped the channel, he saw the same stupid smirk, heard the same celebratory speech. The idiot had been elected.

This was good for Neal, good for his research—he knew that—but he could not help but feel like an accomplice in some fool’s magic act, part of the illusion everyone wanted to believe in. The American people had sent a message—that’s what the talking heads said. The American people wanted change. The American people wanted to feel safe. Chase Williams meant security and—