15
She thought she'd fallen asleep, but now Kate is up and walking.
She's outside. Where? Somehow she left Jack's and is walking the street. But not Jack's street. It's much wider, with houses instead of brownstones. She's in Queens, in a place called Middle Village.
Somehow she knows that. But how? She knows nothing of Queens.
She feels a buzz of anticipation as she turns up the walk toward one of the houses. It's dark on the first floor, with a single window lit on the second. Up the three steps, across the front porch, she reaches her hand toward the bell—
No! That's not her hand! It's too big, the fingers too thick. And she doesn't own a ring that looks anything like—
She knows that ring. She saw it on Holdstock's hand. But how did she get it? And what's happened to her hands? She watches as one of them pushes the bell button, not with a fingertip but with a knuckle. Strange way to ring. And what is this undercurrent of dread she senses?
The door opens then and it's Dr. fielding standing behind the screen.
"Terrence," he says. "What a surprise."
Terrence? Isn't that Holdstock's first name?
"I hope I'm not disturbing you, Doctor," she hears herself say in Holdstock's voice, "but I need your help."
"Come in, come in," Fielding says, pushing open the screen door. "As a matter of fact, I could use your help too. Maybe we can help each other."
As she follows him inside, kicking the door closed behind her, she begins to realize what this is: another one of those surreal dreams she's been having. What's the symbolism here? What conflict is her unconscious trying to resolve?
Then she sees it: Because he was the first to be infected, Holdstock represents the leadership of the Unity. She's terrified by the Unity's invasion of her mind and body, so her subconscious is dealing with that by turning the tables and portraying her as having invaded Holdstock's.
But understanding doesn't release her from the dream's iron grip. She's simply going to have to ride it out.
Fielding is leading the way. "Let's go to my study where we can talk."
Her dread increases as she closes on Fielding's back, fumbling in her—Holdstock's—coat pocket and withdrawing a slim wire with a wooden handle on each end. Although she's never seen one, Kate knows it's a garrote. And she knows that Holdstock made it himself this afternoon, spending an hour drilling a midpoint hole through each of two short lengths of doweling, threading electrical wire through, winding it around and around and triple-knotting it.
Kate from the outset disliked this dream, and hates it now, but she can't stop Holdstock from crossing his wrists and looping the wire over the unsuspecting Doctor's head, from wrenching back on those handles and cinching the wire tight around Fielding's throat, from twisting the wire against the nape of his neck to lock it in place.
A grunt from Fielding as he claws at his throat and tries to turn but she—Holdstock—she—Holdstock—dear Lord, she can't be sure—keeps a relentless grip on the handles and stays behind the frantically struggling doctor. She can see half of his panicked, wide-mouthed face as it darkens toward blue, see one of his baffled, bulging, blood-engorged eyes as it pleads for mercy, for air, for life.
And Kate wants to scream but she's mute, tries to loosen her grip on those handles but cannot.
And now Fielding is kicking and spasming and clawing and twisting madly, slamming the both of them against the dining room table, doing anything within his fading power to break free, but Holdstock's body outweighs his by at least fifty pounds and Kate uses that to hang on, a homicidal rodeo rider on a doomed horse.
Stop it! Oh, dear God, let the poor man go!
But her cries are silent, her pleas unheeded.
And now Fielding's legs give way and he drops to his knees. Kate goes with him, directly behind, maintaining her relentless tension on the wire. His frantic movements slow, his body sags to the side. But Kate stays with him all the way to the floor, never letting up, shoving him onto his face and jamming her knees into his back and hanging on through the terminal spasms as the cells in Fielding's oxygen-starved brain and myocardium fire randomly, agonally, and then finally, not at all.
A stink fills the air as Fielding's sphincters relax. That's the sign she's been waiting for. Kate unwinds the wire and pulls it free. She jumps as Fielding sighs—a flat, atonal sound. But it's only the trapped air in his lungs escaping past his vocal cords. Gripping the table she hauls herself to her feet.
She stares down at the corpse of what had once been a brilliant man. Her dread has changed to remorse, deep regret… such a waste.
Heading for the door, she stuffs the garrote in one pocket and pulls a glove from another. She pulls on the glove and uses that hand to open the front door and close it behind her.
Kate is weeping inside as she walks back down the street, pursued by regret and remorse, and perhaps even a trace of guilt that is not her own.