the mortis Read Online Free PDF Page A

defend their positions for a while and then they switch.
     
     
    No closer to making a decision, they try going to sleep.  Park switches off the bedside lamp, and they lie together on their backs in the dark, making no contact.  He hears the sound of hurried footfalls in the hall outside their suite door—someone running hard, passing by.  Pounding the carpet.  The sound reminds him of pursuit, a hunt, but it’s impossible to tell whether the person he hears is the hunter or the hunted.
    Park can hear his wife ’s breathing, choppy and shallow. 
    “ What do you want to do,” he asks quietly.
    There is a long silence. 
    “Lee.”
    “ I heard you,” she says.  “I don’t know.”
    He rubs his face with both hands.  “You don’t know,” he says.  He finds himself getting angry without really understanding the reason.  “You think I know?”
    “ What do you want from me, Park.”
    “ Commit,” he says.  “Stay or go.  I’m not going to make the decision alone.  We share the outcome—the consequences.   I’m not going to hear you blaming me for anything later.”
    “ What the hell are you even talking about?”
    He props himself up on an elbow and looks at her, what he can see of her in the dark. 
    “We agree to stay, or we agree to go,” he says.  He makes his voice calm.
    “ Go where?  Where can we go?”
    “ Away from here,” he says. 
    “ Where?  You saw what those animals did,” she says.  “You want to go out there and what.  Camp?”  She almost laughs as she says it.  “Live off the goddamned land?”
    Park doesn ’t respond to that.  After a pause, he lies back on the mattress and covers his eyes with the backs of his hands.  They are silent for a while.
    “ I’m sorry,” she says.  “Look.  We should stay here.  Indoors.”  Her voice is gentle.  She rolls over so that she’s facing him.  “Like you said before: maybe all of this is like watching the news.  You only see terrible things—that’s all they show—so you think everything in the world is that way all the time, but it really isn’t.”  She puts a hand on his face.  “We’ve seen a few terrible things, that’s all.”
     
     

chapter three
     
     
    A knock on the door wakes Park the next morning.  Eight thirtyish.  He rolls over and glances at Lee and her eyes are open, as though she ’s been awake for a while, as though she may not have slept at all. 
    “ No thanks,” he says loudly toward the ceiling.
    The Do Not Disturb sign is up on the goddamn knob, but hell—when you ’re staying at a hotel where wild animals eat the guests, what can you expect?
    A voice responds from the hallway.  “Sir?  I apologize.”  It’s a woman’s voice.  The accent is Mirasai.
    Lord, have mercy.  Park whips off the sheet and stands up.  He goes and opens the door without bothering to put on a shirt. 
    “Good morning, sir.”  It’s Rina.  She looks even more worn-out than yesterday.
    “ Hi.”
    “ We’re working out an issue with the phones.  I would have called.”
    “ I’m noticing a lot of issues around here, Rina.”
    She nods.  Her smile looks forced.  “The incident yesterday—”
    “ Which incident would that be, Rina?” he asks.  “I’ve had a few.  Exactly which incident are you waking me up to discuss?”
    “ Honey?” Lee says.  She’s talking to him from the bed.  When she says honey like that—sharply, as though it’s an urgent question—it really means Calm Yourself Down, Park.
    He pauses, exhaling. 
    “Okay,” Park says to Rina.  “Go ahead.  What’s up.”
    “ The conflict in the lobby,” Rina says.  “The guest who was involved has been asked to leave the hotel.  He was escorted out last night.”
    Park nods.  “Okay,” he says.  “What about the kids?”
    “ They as well.”
    “ No.  I mean are they all right.”
    Rina shakes her head.  She ’s looking down at the floor. 
    “ I don’t know,” she