Afterlife.

She drove slowly on the opposite side of the lake. The house in her mind had been a large one. It had a seventies-style architecture-rectangles and squares and too much gla.s.s. She stopped in front of several of them, but each time, it just didn"t seem right.

And then, she saw the house, with a circular driveway in front.

She had been there. She remembered being there, but she could not remember who lived there. Why she had visited it. Had it been another dream? She remembered Matt"s video of the house clearly now-he must have been in the canoe. Maybe with his father. A Boys" Day Out. Matt must"ve held the camcorder up and just videoed the back of the house on the lakeside.

And here she was, at the front. She parked on the road, and walked up the driveway. She did nothing to conceal the gun in her hand. She stepped off the driveway onto the slate walk that went around the side of the house. It was an enormous house, and although it had huge gla.s.s windows, the shades were drawn. She went back to look at the lake, and then to look at the house.

It was the one she remembered. It was the one from Matt"s video.

She felt her heartbeat, too rapid, and a clutching at her throat. She raised the revolver slightly as she went back around to the front of the house.

She stood at the bottom of three steps that led to the front porch. A slender patch of garden bordered the porch-peonies and pansies and irises.

She took each step slowly, feeling a thudding on the inside. A gentle shivery wind down her back.

When she got to the door, she rang the bell and waited.

3.

No one came to the door. She rapped at it. Waited. The revolver felt heavy in her hand, and she lowered it. She began to doubt her vision. Her memory. Was this the house? Whose was it? Who was the out-of-focus woman from her memory that Diamond"s consciousness had brought her back to see?

Who would she know who would know Hut? Would know Amanda? Might have known them years before Julie had ever met Hut? He didn"t have many friends outside of people at work. But none of them lived here. Who lived on the lake? Who was it?

When the door finally opened, she already knew. The name came up to her. A name that Michael Diamond had mentioned.

Nell. That had been what she was called as a girl in Project Daylight.

Eleanor, on the other side of the door, looked startled. "Julie?" she asked as if she had expected someone else.

Julie brought the revolver up, pointing it at her. "Where are my children?"

4.

She stepped over the threshold of the house as if she were in a dream. How could this be real? How could Eleanor, a therapist, for G.o.d"s sake, be part of some insane psychic conspiracy? What was she thinking? How was it possible? But possible didn"t matter anymore.

"Now, don"t get excited," Eleanor said. "You"re experiencing-"

Julie cut her off. "I know. Post-traumatic-stress blah blah blah." She kept the revolver pointed at her.

"Julie, put that thing down," Eleanor said. "Right now. You are not in any danger, believe me."

"Where are they?" Julie asked, her voice hardened.

"Matt"s asleep. He needed rest."

"Did you hurt him?"

"Of course not. He was getting violent. You know how he is. We had to...give him something." Eleanor spoke as if she were in her office again, dispensing advice.

"You are good, Eleanor. Or Nell. Or whoever you are. You are good," good," Julie said. Julie said.

The man she knew as Dr. Glennon came out of a room down the hall. He spoke to Eleanor, "Well, I can"t say we didn"t expect this."

"I know," Eleanor said. "Hut"s been careless."

Dr. Glennon nodded to Julie. "Mrs. Hutchinson, please, just think for a minute. I know you"ve gotten some mumbo-jumbo from that Diamant character. But he"s taken care of."

"Did you give him some Xalax? Or Darmien? Something to make him sleep? Is that what you gave Matty, too?"

Dr. Glennon held up his hands, slightly defensively. "I know what that man told you, Mrs. Hutchinson. But there"s more to it. Believe me."

Eleanor said, "Julie, we had to do it this way. We had to wait until Hut was fully himself again. He"s better than he was. He really is."

"You people brought him back from the dead."

"I would"ve thought you loved him enough," Eleanor said, "to want him back. He has Ability X stronger than anyone we"ve known. You loved him. He loves you. He loves you, Julie. Surely, you"d want to be with him."

"Not like this," Julie said. "You"re a pack of f.u.c.king psychic vampires."

Eleanor shot a look at Dr. Glennon, who went to sit down on the stairs to the second floor. He looked exhausted. Julie noticed sweat on his forehead. She was scaring them. Just a little. She didn"t know how they"d be scared. "You"re nothing but zombies."

"Oh, Julie," Eleanor tsked as if she were a child. "This is the human brain. It"s not mystical c.r.a.p like Diamant believed. Project Daylight was a scam. They were trying to find out things to justify war. To justify invasion. To milk little children of their abilities. But we all learned, together. We learned. And we"ve put it into action."

"You kill. You kill each other. You kill your own children. I didn"t even know you had children, Eleanor."

Eleanor began to look at the revolver as if she wanted to grab it. Julie grinned. She was happy to feel that she had power in this situation.

"You"ve been in the Stream, Julie," Eleanor said. "You know how life and death are definitions of the imperfect human brain. There is no death, Julie. There doesn"t need to be. Those of us with this ability can change how human beings exist. We can alter the course of the future."

"Not all of you come back. Are you dead yet Eleanor?"

"I guess there"s no reasoning with you," Eleanor said.

And then, Hut came around the corner, with others behind him. People she didn"t know-three or four of them. The red-headed woman from the video was there. Gina? Was that her name? She stood back with a middle-aged man who had tortoise-sh.e.l.l gla.s.ses on and thinning hair.

"Zombies," she said.

"Baby," Hut said, moving toward her too rapidly. He looked well rested. He looked healthy. He wore one of his favorite T-shirts, and blue jeans, and didn"t look like he was in his forties at all. He looked better than she remembered him looking. Life was in him.

"No, Hut," she said. She raised the revolver. "I saw you shoot Michael Diamond."

"He"s not dead, though," Hut said. "He"s somewhere safe now. He won"t harm you again. And he won"t harm us."

"You shot him. And he fell. If I shoot you, maybe I"ll feel good. Maybe it"s enough."

"If you shoot me, will you shoot all of them?" Hut asked. "Will that get you what you want, Julie?

"Where"s Livy?"

Eleanor cleared her throat.

"Matt"s resting, upstairs," Hut said. "You can go see him if you want."

"You drugged him. You...you killed him...when he was practically a baby...you tested tested him," Julie said. him," Julie said.

"What is it you want, baby?" Hut asked. His eyes seemed kind. He didn"t look like the undead. He didn"t look like a vampire. He didn"t look as if he meant to hurt her. She hated him most for that. She tried to remember Michael Diamond"s words. Things he"d said. She tried to remember the feeling of Michael Diamond inside her and being inside him. The safety of it. The warmth. The complete connection between the two of them. "What is it you want?"

"I want my children."

"Yes," Hut said. Dr. Glennon looked up at him as if this were the wrong answer.

"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 G.o.d," 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 a.s.sumed 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. f.u.c.k that. f.u.c.k 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. f.u.c.k that. f.u.c.k 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 G.o.ds. But there"s no G.o.d, 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 h.e.l.l." 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.ds 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 pa.s.sing 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. I resist death. Three days is all I need. Three days to remain dead, for my consciousness to grow strong again after the point of weakness of the physical death."

"You"re talking but I hear nothing but bulls.h.i.t," she said.

She stepped into the bedroom.

6.

Julie stepped into the room, feeling as if she were entering a dark cave. Yet, it was just a small bedroom, with the narrow bed pressed up against the far wall. Candles were lit around the child"s bed, and some of the Inner Sanctum"s members were there-a man of about thirty with thick blond hair sitting on a barcalounger near the shuttered window, and a teenaged girl who had a Sony Walkman in her hand and earphones in a halo over her head. She drew them off, looked at Julie, then at the blond man, and then at Hut.

"Christ," Julie said. She had lost the nervous feeling, knowing she had a purpose here that was not about herself. That was not about weakness. But she saw her daughter"s hair, from under the covers, and the lump of her body under the covers.

The blond man"s face betrayed nothing but caution. He had half risen up in the chair, and then, seeing Hut, sat back down.

Eleanor"s voice behind her. "Now, Julie, you must be exhausted. Why don"t you just..."

"I"m not your patient anymore," Julie said. "Talk to your Great G.o.d Hut."

"He"s not a-" the blond man began, and then silenced himself.

Julie said to herself: don"t be afraid. You don"t matter anymore. They don"t matter. All that matters is Livy. All that matters is my little girl. don"t be afraid. You don"t matter anymore. They don"t matter. All that matters is Livy. All that matters is my little girl.

"You"re ghouls, aren"t you?" Julie whispered. "I"m not even sure if you"re human."

"Good grief," Eleanor said. "Julie, this isn"t mysticism. It"s pure science. It"s just a science we didn"t know about."

"I don"t need to hear about this death cult anymore," Julie said. She had that one thing left in her. She had hope. Maybe Livy was alive. They"d only had her one day, after all. Not even a full day.

"It"s reality. Objective reality," Eleanor said. "It"s not a cult."

"It"s not therapy, either," Julie spat back. She pointed the gun at the teenaged girl. "Get away from my daughter."