The Strain (Page 33)

"No, I’ll call them-it will be fine." He looked around, feeling himself splitting in two. "We need to take another look at the pilot. Why did his puncture close up, but not the others’? We need to get on top of the physiopathology of this thing."

"And the other survivors."

Eph frowned, reminded that they were gone. "It’s not like Jim to screw up like that."

Nora wanted to defend Jim. "If they’re getting sick, they’ll come back."

"Only-it might be too late. For them, and for us."

"What do you mean, for us?"

"To get to the bottom of this thing. There’s got to be an answer somewhere, an explanation. A rationale. Something impossible is happening, and we need to find out why and stop it."

Up on the sidewalk at the main entrance on First Street, news crews were set up for live remotes from the medical examiner’s office. That attracted a sizable crowd of onlookers, whose nervousness was palpable from around the corner. Lots of uncertainty in the air.

But one man broke from the crowd, a man Eph had noticed on the way in. An old man with birch white hair, holding a walking stick that was too tall for him, gripping it, like a staff, below its high silver handle. Like a dinner-theater Moses, except that he was impeccably dressed, formal and old-fashioned, in a light black overcoat over a gabardine suit, with a gold watch chain looped on his vest. And-oddly for the otherwise distinguished wardrobe-gray wool gloves with the fingertips cut off.

"Dr. Goodweather?"

The old man knew his name. Eph gave him another look, and said, "Do I know you?"

The man spoke with an accent, maybe Slavic. "I saw you on the box. The TV. I knew you would have to come here."

"You’ve been waiting here for me?"

"What I have to say, Doctor, it is very important. Critical."

Eph was distracted by the handle on top of the old man’s tall walking stick: a silver wolf’s head. "Well, not now…call my office, make an appointment…" He moved away, dialing rapidly on his cell phone.

The old man appeared anxious, an agitated man striving to speak calmly. He put on his best gentlemanly smile, including Nora in his introduction. "Abraham Setrakian is my name. Which should mean nothing to you." He gestured, with his walking stick, at the morgue. "You saw them in there. The passengers from the airplane."

Nora said, "You know something about that?"

"Indeed," he said, sending a grateful smile her way. Setrakian glanced at the morgue again, like a man who, having waited so long to speak, was uncertain where to start. "You found them not much changed in there, no?"

Eph turned off his cell phone before it rang through. The old man’s words echoed his own irrational fears. "Not changed how?" he said.

"The dead. Bodies not breaking down."

Eph said, more out of concern than intrigue, "So that is what people are hearing out here?"

"No one had to tell me anything, Doctor. I know."

"You ‘know,’" said Eph.

"Tell us," said Nora. "What else do you know?"

The old man cleared his throat. "Have you found a…coffin?"

Eph felt Nora rise up almost three inches off the sidewalk. Eph said, "What did you say?"

"A coffin. If you have it, then you still have him."

Nora said, "Him who?"

"Destroy it. Right away. Do not keep it for study. You must destroy the coffin, without delay."

Nora shook her head. "It’s gone," she said. "We don’t know where it is."

Setrakian swallowed with bitter disappointment. "It is as I feared."

"Why destroy it?" asked Nora.

Eph cut in then, saying to Nora, "If this kind of talk is getting around, people will panic." He looked at the old man. "Who are you? How did you hear these things?"

"I am a pawnbroker. I heard nothing. These things I know."

"You know?" said Nora. "How do you know?"

"Please." He focused on Nora now, the more receptive one. "What I am about to say, I do not say lightly. I say it desperately and with utter honesty. Those bodies in there?" He pointed at the morgue. "I tell you, before this night falls, they must be destroyed."

"Destroyed?" said Nora, reacting negatively to him for the first time. "Why?"

"I recommend incineration. Cremation. It is simple and sure."

"That’s him," came a voice from the side doors, a morgue official leading a uniformed New York City patrolman toward them. Toward Setrakian.

The old man ignored them, speaking faster now. "Please. It is almost too late."

"Right there," said the morgue official, marching over, pointing out Setrakian to the cop. "That’s the guy."

The cop, amiable and bored, said to Setrakian, "Sir?"

Setrakian ignored him, pleading his case directly to Nora and Eph. "A truce has been broken. An ancient, sacred pact. By a man who is no longer a man, but an abomination. A walking, devouring abomination."

"Sir," said the cop. "May I have a word with you, sir?"

Setrakian reached out and grasped Eph’s wrist, to command his attention. "He is here now, here in the New World, this city, this very day. This night. Do you understand? He must be stopped."

The wool-covered fingers of the old man’s hand were gnarled, claw-like. Eph pulled away from him, not roughly but enough to jostle the old man backward. His walking stick whacked the cop on the shoulder, almost in the face-and suddenly the cop’s disinterest turned to anger.

"Okay, that’s it," said the cop, twisting the walking stick out of his hands and bracing the old man’s arm. "Let’s go."

"You must stop him here," Setrakian continued, being led away.

Nora turned to the morgue official. "What’s this about? What are you doing?"

The official glanced at the laminated identification cards hanging from their necks-the red letters reading CDC-before answering. "He tried to get inside earlier, claiming to be a family member. Insisting on viewing the dead bodies." The official looked at him being taken away. "Some kind of ghoul."

The old man continued to plead his case. "Ultraviolet light," he called over his shoulder. "Go over the bodies with ultraviolet light…"

Eph froze. Had he just heard that?

"Then you will see I am right," yelled the old man, being folded into the backseat of a cruiser. "Destroy them. Now. Before it is too late…"