This Mortal Coil Read Online Free PDF

that it threatened to rob them of their most crucial asset, awareness. Unbeknownst to them, Oswald had regained consciousness and was slowly working to loosen the binding that held his wrists behind his back. When at last he freed himself, he bounded to his feet and bolted for the stairwell.
    “Shit!”
    They both went for their rifles. Theresa proved the faster of the two. With only seconds to draw a bead she leveled the barrel, took a bracing breath, and squeezed the trigger. Oswald’s headless corpse fell just feet short of the stairs, bits of bone and brain raining down around it like some macabre ticker-tape parade.
    Outside the tent, Lucas looked on, eyes wide with mute horror. Theresa stepped in front of him. Aiming her rifle down, she gave him a questioning look. He just his shook his head.
    “Smart boy,” she said.
    Inspecting Oswald’s body, they found nothing especially useful on his person. “Damnit,” Willem murmured. “What are we going to do now?”
    “Sleep and be warm.” The answer came to Theresa’s lips as naturally as her hands had found the rifle by her side.
    She had a point, and indeed the rationale seemed straightforward enough. Still, the fact he had allowed his temper to put them in such a precarious spot irked him. “I wish I had your confidence.”
    “I have enough for both of us. Now come on, the night’s not getting any younger,” she said, tugging him back to the tent by the sleeve of his jumpsuit.
    They slept back to back in the tent, the warmth of the heater combined with that of their bodies giving them license to really, truly rest, if only for a few hours. With the gnawing cold held at bay by the heater’s gentle humming, Willem even found himself dreaming. It was a peculiar dream, one in which he seemed to be both participant and spectator at the same time.
    He was on a gurney, wreathed in a gauzy white ether obscuring more of the scene than it illuminated. Theresa was there, too. They were much older than their present selves, yet Willem was certain he was remembering— reliving? —an event that had already taken place. He struggled to make sense of the sensation even as he watched their gurneys being drawn up side-by-side, their bodies covered with electrodes feeding vitals into a battery of monitoring devices nearby. There were others similarly situated around them but somehow their presence seemed inconsequential, like mannequins or set pieces designed only to fill the edges of the frame. When he tried to focus on them they began to fade like afterimages of some too-bright light.
    Will?
    Yes?
    Their voices sounded hollow, strangely synthesized.
    Have we gone too far?
    A long pause.
    That’s not for us to decide.
    Isn’t it, though?
    Willem sighed.
    Their point of view changed abruptly. All at once they were outside the room looking in on themselves. A switch seemed all but to materialize between them.
    Theresa reached for him. Before she could grasp his arm, he flipped the switch.
    A jagged burst of static filled his ears. It was followed by a lens flare so bright it burned white-hot against the backs of his eyelids, tearing him from sleep like a newborn babe torn from the womb. He opened his eyes tentatively, blinking away the attendant disorientation of the dream. It was first light, the sun not even high and bright enough to require squinting against.
    So why then did he feel as if he had just spent several minutes staring directly into it?
    He shifted in the bedroll, feeling only empty space beside him. Emerging from the tent, he found Theresa huddled over Oswald’s corpse, her bent backside obscuring her diligence.  
    “So help me, kid, if you keep staring at my ass—”
    “I don’t think he’s staring so much as wondering what you’re going to do if you don’t find what you’re looking for.” Beside him, Lucas nodded vigorously. “What are you looking for, anyway?”
    “I don’t know. A key or a code book or something. They had to use something to