The Astronaut's Wife (19 page)

In a walk-in closet in Jillian and Spencer’s apartment, Spencer studied every piece of paper that Sherman Reese had managed to cram into his already overstuffed briefcase. He was amazed at how the man had managed to take a few facts and spin them into a scenario that was dangerously close to the the whole truth.

Nan found Spencer entranced by the document and the tapes. She had no idea what he was looking at, it meant nothing to her. She was more interested in the welfare of her sister.
“Spencer, are you going to the hospital?” she
asked. “I am. She’s got so much on her mind
_{. . .}
some of it doesn’t make sense, but it’s pretty in-

tense.
Spencer continued to study the documents. “What do you mean?” he asked. “She’s pretty pissed at you, for one thing,” said Nan. “She thinks you’re out to get her.” “She’s wrong,” said Spencer. He still did not look up from the papers.
Nan peered over his shoulder. “What’s so interesting there? What are you reading?” Spencer stood up and grabbed Nan by the wrist. Immediately she tried to pull away. “Let go

But Spencer pulled her close. It was gentle. He did not have to threaten her with physical pain. “I said, let go of me.” With her free hand Nan raked her nails along his forearm, pulling away skin and drawing bright blood. He winced in pain but did not let go of her. Instead he drew Nan close, like a lover. Spencer bent at the waist and put his mouth to her ear, whispering something. Immediately, Nan began to scream in pain’ desperately trying to claw at her own ears to keep his voice from her hearing. But her hands were pinned. He would not let her go and continued to speak to her.

Then Nan stopped screaming. Blood broke from her lips and her eyes went blank. Very slowly, Spencer allowed her broken dead body to slip to the floor of the closet, her blood flooding out on to the dog-eared papers and documents that had once been the property of the hapless, now deceased, Sherman Reese.
As Nan hit the floor, Jillian, in her hospital bed felt
_{. . .}
something, something that wakened her. Something grim and awful. She felt as if a part of her had been killed and she sat bolt upright in the bed and screamed.
“Nan!”

Jillian was determined to get out of the bed. She
had
to get out of that damn hospital. It took her a while to remove all of the IV tubes from her ann. Then she pushed down the gate on the right side of the bed, swung herself around, and sat there for a moment, her feet poised above the cold hospital floor. Then she pushed herself off, as if launching herself into the void, her toes making contact with the floor. She held herself steady against the bed for a moment or two, then straightened and staggered toward the closet on the far side of the room. She was going to get dressed and get out of there.

There were clothes, fresh, clean clothes, in that closet, clothes that Nan had placed there, put away like a bride’s trousseau, against some happy day in the future. It took a while for her to get dressed— she had never realized what complicated things zippers could be, and how recalcitrant and difficult buttons are, but she managed to get herself dressed and out of the hospital room without being detected.

It was still very early in the morning and Jillian could totter down the hallway undetected. All around her the sick and the insane were sleeping. The nurses were not at their posts and most of the doctors had left the building. Jillian carefully made her way to the elevator bank at the end of the corridor.

Mercifully, the elevator was empty and with a sudden burst of happiness, she stepped into the car. Her happiness did not last long. As the elevator reached the ground floor and the double metal doors swept open Jillian found herself looking out at an-other hospital corridor and two exhausted-looking interns standing there waiting for a ride.

Jillian trembled with fear.
“Ma’am?” said one of the doctors in training. “Ma’am? Are you okay?” She saw the two young men and the hospital hallway behind them, but beyond, the corridor raced off into the blackness of space. This time the stars were gone.
“Are you okay?” he repeated.
Jillian managed to nod and she stepped off the elevator walking with the exaggerated precision of a drunk. The two interns looked at her, then at each other, and shrugged. They were really too tired to care
_{. . .}

Outside of the hospital the world appeared to be normal. She walked down the sidewalk, looking for a cab, but there was none in sight. Up ahead was a bus shelter, glowing in the dark from the light of its advertising panel. She walked to it and stopped
there a moment, hoping .for a bus, then realizing she knew nothing about the New York City bus system. As soon as she decided she would wait there and throw herself on the mercy of the driver of the first bus to come along, she saw something that made her wince with terror. A man was coming down the street, walking fast and purposefully. She had no idea who he was, but she had no doubt that he was coming for her.

Jillian ran, dashed a round a corner, and almost ran into a cab that was just pulling away from the curb, having just dropped a fare. Frantically she waved it down and threw herself into the back seat. The driver could not be seen, hidden as he was behind dark and scratched Plexiglas. She leaned forward and blurted out her address.

“Yes, missus, very good,” the driver replied to her instructions. He had a heavy foreign accent and that reassured her. There was no way it could be Spencer.
_.
Jillian sat back in the seat and looked out at the passing cityscape. Everything appeared as it should. There were a couple of people on the sidewalk, there were cars on the street. She allowed herself to relax for a moment—until the cab rolled to a stop for a red light at an intersection. Jillian felt the fear again and she looked through the back window to see another cab a few hundred yards behind bearing down on her. Jillian pounded on the Plexiglas.
“Go! Go!” she screamed at the driver.
“But it is red, missus,” came the reply.
Jillian was crying now. “Go, please, please go
_{. . .}

“But, missus, I cannot.”
“Oh God,” she gasped. She had to get out of that cab. She grabbed the handle and threw open the door. But New York City had vanished, replaced by the vast blackness of space. Jillian slammed the door and fell back on the cracked vinyl of the seats panting and sobbing, so filled with terror she was paralyzed.
Then from the front seat she heard Spencer’s voice, calm and reasonable.
“You see it too, don’t you?” Spencer said softly. “Don’t you, Jillian?”
“Yes,” she gasped, her voice broken and hoarse. “And it’s just us, all alone
_{. . .}
no one else knows,” said Spencer.
Jillian nodded. “Yes,” she said.
“Just us
_{. . .}
and now you know.”
“It’s not a dream,” Jillian whispered. She opened the car door and stepped out into the street and ran, But Spencer’s voice followed her, she could hear it in her head, she could hear it all around her, as if he had en over the city.
“Look around,” he said. “These people don’t know you. No one knows you. Only me. It’s just us now, Jillian. You and me. And what’s inside you
_{. . .}
we’re connected.”
But even as she heard her husband’s voice she heard the voice of the cab driver, irate and screaming about her running out on her fare . . .

The subway train screamed into the station like a demon, its iron wheels shrieking on the track as it came to a stop. The doors swept open and Jillian entered and sat on a bench. There were a few tired-looking night workers in the car, wending their way home after a long, dark shift in the office towers of the city. No one looked at Jillian and she made no eye contact. She gazed out the window, but as the kinescope flash of light and dark in the subway tunnel danced before her eyes, a series of random images thrust themselves into her brain. She saw herself in bed with Spencer,
Follow the Fleet
on TV, Fred Astaire singing.

Fred Astaire’s voice died away and she saw an-other scene from her life. Jillian and Spencer were in bed again. But this time they were in their bed in New York. Jillian was flat on her back as if drugged, Spencer on top of her, thrusting into her. Somewhere nearby was the insect sound
_{. .}

Jillian burst into tears, and an old woman across the aisle looked at her. The scream of the subway wheels masked the sounds of her sobs.
_.
Now she was on the examination table in Denise’ s office. On the ultrasound monitor she could see the twins, in utero, more fully formed than she had ever seen them. Their eyes stared out, their mouths open as they floated inside of her.
The twins vanished, replaced by the horrific scene of Natalie Streck standing over that bathroom sink. Jillian could see herself in that mirror, and behind her stood Spencer.
The subway shrieked as it pulled into a station.
The doors creaked open and Jillian jumped to her feet and fled.

It was so quiet and so still on the street. She was nearly at her apartment building and she was alone. She put one hand on her stomach and wept with relief. Then she heard a whisper behind her.

Spencer said, “Jillian?” His voice sounded heavy with relief. Jillian whipped around and saw him walking quickly toward her. She screamed and ran for the front door of her building.
“Jillian!” Spencer shouted. “Please
_{. ..“}
But she didn’t stop. She burst into the foyer of her building, her sudden appearance waking the snoozing night doorman. He sat up behind the desk and blinked at her as she ran for the elevator. She hit the up button hard.
“Everything okay there, Mrs. A?” the night man asked.
The elevator was a long time coming. Jillian looked at the street door, then back at the elevator, willing it to come.
“Hey, look,” said the doorman. “Here comes your husband, Mrs. A.”
Jillian did not answer. The elevator arrived and she jumped into it and vanished. The doorman shrugged. Lovers’ tiff, he figured. He’d seen it a million times before.
Jillian threw open the door of the apartment and locked the door behind her. She put all her weight behind the bench next to the door and dragged it a few feet to barricade the entrance.
A few seconds later the front door opened and thumped against the heavy bench. “Jillian?” Spencer called through the narrow gap. “Jillian, what are you doing?” He threw his weight against the door and the bench moved a few inches.
Jillian knew she had very little time. She ran to the living room and pulled the plug on the radio and then raced to the kitchen and turned on both taps in the sink, water gushing against the basin and slopping onto the floor.
The front door flew open and Spencer stood there, stock-still, listening to the sound of water running. It seemed to be gushing all over the apartment.
“Jillian?” he yelled.
But Jillian did not answer
_{. . .}

He found her in the kitchen. She was sitting on a stool, an island in the middle of a flooded room. She was barefoot and in one hand she held one end of an extension cord; the other end was plugged into a wall socket. The radio was on the flooded counter, soaked with water. All she had to do was plug the extension cord into the radio and the entire pool in the kitchen would become electrified. She planted her bare feet in the water and looked at her husband defiantly.

“Stay away from us,” Jillian growled, her voice low and feral. As Spencer watched she brought the two contacts close together, the two points almost touching.
“Jillian, please
_{. . .“}
Spencer pleaded.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“For God’s sake, Jillian
_{. . .“}
Spencer would not give an inch in this battle of nerves.
“What did you do to me?” Jillian demanded angrily. “What have you done?”
Spencer’s voice dropped to a pleading whisper. “Jillian, please
_{. . .}
just take your feet out of the water. “
Jillian looked down at her feet and shook her head. “No,” she said.
Spencer advanced a step. “Jillian
_{. . .}
let me help you. It doesn’t have to be like this.”
Jillian’s voice was soft but determined. “No
_{. . .}
it doesn’t.” She looked at him squarely. “Who are you?”
“I love you, Jilly.”
She shook her head. She was not going to fall for that. “No,” she said. “Tell me who you are.
_“
“I’m your husband,” said Spencer simply.
“No!” Jillian yelled. “No you’re not!”
“I know the first time I saw you, you were under that tree, laughing with your friends.”
The memory was correct, but it had been remembered by the wrong person. “That wasn’t you.”
The water was still streaming onto the counter, swamping the radio and pouring on to the floor. The water was washing up against Spencer’s shoes. He took a step back.
“Remember what you said to me, the first time we kissed?”
“That wasn’t you.”
Spencer pushed on. “You laughed and you said
‘What am I going to do with you?’ Do you remember that, Jillian?”
“That wasn’t you,” she snapped. “That was Spencer. “
“‘What am I going to do with you?’ And we talked, all the time, about our lives, our future-. . . our family . . . Remember how I held you, when it was dark, when you were in that
_{. . .}
that place. Remember? I held you, Jill, so tight.” That place was the hospital where she had been confined when her’ parents had been killed.
“That was Spencer.”
“Please, Jillian, take your feet out of the water.” Jillian did not. But she tried to be calm nonetheless. “The plane
_{. . .}
That signal it’s going to send . . . What happened to Spencer, up there. It’s going to happen to all of us, isn’t it. To all of us. You’re just the first, just the first . . .“
“Jillian...“
Jillian held her stomach. “They will never fly it. I won’t let them and you can’t make them.” “You know you can’t hurt them, Jillian. You know you love them, we both do.” As Spencer spoke, his gaze dropped from Jillian’s face until he was looking at her belly.
Jillian grabbed herself tighter. “Leave them alone!” she ordered. Then, more calmly, quieter: “Leave them alone
_{. . .“}
Jillian rubbed the two points together. Suddenly the roar of running water mixed with the very faint sound of babies crying.
“I saved you once, Jillian,” he said. “Remember
that? Please let me do it again.” He held out his hands. “Please come here.”
“That was Spencer,” she said. Her voice was filled with steel. “Spencer is dead.” Suddenly it was full of hate. “Spencer is dead and you killed him.”
Spencer was in agony. He knew that if he could get near her, he could overpower her, but the threatening tide of water was right at his feet. Once again he was forced to take a step back.
“Jillian, come here,” he said, throwing out his arms to her. The action pulled back the sleeve of his shirt and she saw the scratch marks that Nan had carved in his forearms.
Instantly Jillian knew the source. “Oh, my God,” she wailed. “You killed her.”
Spencer looked down at the scratches, then over at Jillian. There was a new and strange tone in his voice as he spoke to her this time. “Listen to them, Jillian.”
“Oh God,” Jillian cried out.
“Let them teach you what to see. Let them show you. They have already started.”
“No.
No!”
Jillian could not tolerate the thought that the children in her womb might be evil.
“Now, Jillian,” Spencer commanded. “Come here. Now!”
“Never,” Jillian whispered.
They were at a standoff. Husband and wife just stared at each other, neither willing to give an inch. The only sound was the rushing water.
Frustration and fury were beginning to build in Spencer. His jaw clenched tight like a trap, his fists
opened and closed. he started to pant like an animal as he stared at her with the intensity of lasers. The stool upon which Jillian was sitting began to tremble, then to shake, and then it started to move. First an inch, then another. To her horror she realized that she was being drawn toward Spencer. He was dragging her to him by sheer force of will. Jillian’s eyes were wide with terror.
“Open up to them, Jillian. Let them in. Let us in. Can’t you feel us?”
She was being drawn closer and he reached out, but she was still beyond his grasp. She stared at him hard, her eyes burning with hate.
“Let them, Jillian, let them bring you here. We belong together, all of us.”
The tears coursed down her cheeks as she was drawn inexorably closer.
“That’s good,” said Spencer. “That’s good, Jillian.”
“Why did you come here?” Her voice was a heartbreaking wail of despair. “Why us?” Then she saw that the water had worked its way around Spencer, touching his heels.
“You will never get them,” she said.
Spencer smiled. “They are already mine.”
“What do you see?” asked Jillian.
Spencer looked puzzled. She pointed to the radio. “How do you get it to make sound? I turn it on and all I get is music.” Spencer was surrounded by water now and he lunged for her.
“All I get is music,” she said as she pulled her feet from the water and perched them on the wooden stool. Then she pushed the radio plug into the extension cord.
Spencer had time to say “Jillian, no!” before the electricity hit. The room seemed to come alive, humming with energy, the relentless sound of electric current. It was -as if an electrical storm had erupted in the middle of the apartment.
Spencer was standing rigid, his body trembling. Bloody tears began to ooze from his eyes. He forced open his mouth and from it came not words, but that horrible sound, the screaming of insects. All over the apartment light bulbs began to explode, the sparks streaking around the space like lightning. Blood was dripping from each of Spencer’s ten rigid fingers. For a moment there was darkness all around except for an ethereal light that illuminated their two faces, as if they were in space. The only sound was the screech issuing from Spencer’s twisted and contorted mouth.
Then, with a flash of bright light, the room lit up again and Spencer dropped to his knees in the deadly water. Then he fell, bleeding and prostrate at Jillian’s feet. Abruptly, the screaming stopped.
And all was silent for what seemed like an unnaturally long span of seconds. Then without warning, Spencer’s body twitched, as if his corpse were giving in to a final death spasm. As she looked at him, she realized, to her horror, that this was not the involuntary shudder of a dead man. Rather, it was a shrug, a shake of his entire body as if he were somehow throwing off the mantle of his horrible death.
Then, before Jillian’s terrified gaze, Spencer’s body seemed to open and something, some
thing,
rose out of the corpse, as if an evil soul were vacating a useless cadaver.
Suddenly, the insect-like screaming began again, louder then ever. The twin fetuses inside of her kicked an abrupt and violent tattoo against the wall of her womb as if welcoming the hideous apparition and betraying her at the same time.
The thing was light and dark and without corporeal form. She sensed the thing rather than actually saw it—and what she sensed chilled her to the depths of her soul. She could feel the presence of absolute evil in that cold wet room and it emanated from that thing like the heat given off by a roaring bonfire.
Then the entire room went berserk. Every appliance in the kitchen turned on—flames erupted from the burners on the stove, sending jets of fire halfway to the ceiling, the microwave seemed to scream, the dishwasher churned as if it contained a hurricane, and the refrigerator door flew open and vomited forth its contents. Food flew in every direction and ice cubes ricocheted like cold bullets, snapping and cracking on the tiled walls.
And the radio turned on, the dial running crazily up through all the bands, trailing a mad scrabble of speech and snatches of music, and then it shot back down again and stopped at its special place. The speaker erupted with the screeching, the scream of the alien.
The thing itself was everywhere in the room and
it was nowhere as well. It danced around the chaotic kitchen, darting to the ceiling, then plummeting to the wet floor. But no matter where it was, she could feel it drawing ever closer to her, as if it were attempting to dominate her, to overcome her resolve.
Then suddenly and without warning, it was on her, pressed against her with unimaginable force, stuck to her like a second layer of skin. She could feel it trying to physically enter her, trying to burrow in and possess her, both body and soul.
In an instant all of her nerves were alive and tingling, all of her defenses were up. Her muscles tensed until they. were as tight as steel cables and her jaw clenched until her teeth cracked. She summoned up every
_.
ounce of strength she possessed, every last iota of will in her mind to fight the power that bore down on her so relentlessly.
But Jillian found herself fighting a battle on two fronts. She struggled against the power outside of herself while her twin babies seemed to gnaw at her from within, as they were urging her to surrender herself to the power so much greater then she.
“No, no,
no!”
She said through clenched teeth. “I cannot let this happen.” She may have been talking to her unborn children, she may .have been trying to convince herself.
Then there was nothing.
It was as if in response to her words, but the struggle abruptly stopped. The force backed off, pulling away from her. She could feel it go. Deep down inside of her body, the twins fell silent and still. She was trembling with the effort she had expended.
Jillian used that moment of quiet to draw a single, deep calming breath. For a split second she allowed herself to relax
_{. . .}
Then out of nowhere, it struck, hitting her with the force of a wrenching body blow, overwhelming her weakened defenses. She could feel the power of the alien pouring into her, as if it were water rushing through a break in a dam. Suddenly, she felt as if she were drowning in the slimy spirit of this foreign, unnatural thing. She could feel it deep inside of her. It was corroding her soul like acid.
Terror seized her as she realized that she had come face to face with the end of her own life. She opened her mouth to scream at the horror of it all, but the sound caught in her throat, as if ensnared in a terrible trap.
Jillian’s eyes opened wide and the pupils seemed to glow crazily for a moment Then her face—her eyes—shut down, closing flat and dead. The last of the evil had entered through her eyes and then shut off the light of life that had glowed within her. She was very still for a moment, as Jillian floated over to the other side. Then her shoulders slumped slightly and her head fell forward as her eyes re-opened. And to look in them was to know that the old Jillian was as dead as the man who had once been Spencer Armacost . . .