Delirium: The Complete Collection Read Online Free PDF Page B

practically see my numbers flipping backward. But it’s too late. I’m finished—it’s the roaring in my ears, growing louder and louder, a stampede that makes thinking impossible. I quickly stammer out an explanation. “Not gray, exactly. Right before the sun rises there’s a moment when the whole sky goes this pale nothing color—not really gray but sort of, or sort of white, and I’ve always really liked it because it reminds me of waiting for something good to happen.”
    But they’ve stopped listening. All of them are staring beyond me, heads cocked, expressions confused, as though trying to make out familiar words in a foreign language. And then suddenly the roaring and the screaming surge and I realize I haven’t been imagining them all this time. People really are screaming, and there’s a tumbling, rolling, drumming sound, like a thousand feet moving together. There’s a third sound too, running under both of those: a wordless bellowing that doesn’t sound human.
    In my confusion everything seems disconnected, the way it does in dreams. Evaluator One half rises from her chair, saying, “What the hell . . . ?”
    At the same time, Glasses says, “Sit down, Helen. I’ll go see what’s wrong.”
    But at that second the blue door bursts open and a streaming blur of cows—actual, real, live, sweating, mooing cows—come thundering into the lab.
    Definitely a stampede , I think, and for one weird, detached second feel proud of myself for correctly identifying the noise.
    Then I realize I’m being charged by a bunch of very heavy, very frightened herd animals, and am about two seconds from getting stomped into the ground.
    Instantly I launch myself into the corner and wedge myself behind the surgical table, where I’m completely protected from the panicked mass of animals. I poke my head out just a little so I can still see what’s going on. The evaluators are hopping up onto the table now, as walls of brown and speckled cow flanks fold around them. Evaluator One is screaming at the top of her lungs, and Glasses is yelling, “Calm down, calm down!” even though he’s grabbing onto her like she’s a life raft and he’s in danger of sinking.
    Some of the cows have wigs hanging crazily from their heads, and others are half-swaddled in gowns identical to the one I’m wearing. For a second I’m sure I’m dreaming. Maybe this whole day has been a dream, and I’ll wake up to discover that I’m still at home, in bed, on the morning of my evaluation. But then I notice the writing on the cows’ flanks: NOT CURE. DEATH. The words are written in sloppy ink, just above the neatly branded numbers that identify these cows as destined for the slaughterhouse.
    A little chill dances up my spine, and everything starts clicking into place. Every couple of years the Invalids—the people who live in the Wilds, the unregulated land that exists between recognized cities and towns—sneak into Portland and stage some kind of protest. One year they came in at night and painted red death skulls on every single one of the known scientists’ houses. Another year they managed to break into the central police station, which coordinates all the patrols and guard shifts for Portland, and move all the furniture onto the roof, even the coffee machines. That was pretty funny, actually—and pretty amazing, since you’d think Central would be the most secure building in Portland. People in the Wilds don’t see love as a disease, and they don’t believe in the cure. They think it’s a kind of cruelty. Thus the slogan.
    Now I get it: The cows are dressed up as us, the people being evaluated. Like we’re all a bunch of herd animals.
    The cows are calming down somewhat. They’re not charging anymore, and have begun to shuffle back and forth in the lab. Evaluator One has a clipboard in her hand, and she’s swooping and swatting as the cows butt up against the table, mooing and nipping at the papers scattered across its