“Everything is going to be alright,” she said, turning it over in the light.

As soon as he saw that sloshing white, Zeke’s eyes widened, terror pushing up through anesthetic. In an instant he’d yanked the IV from his arm. His doctors rushed forward. With a muzzled scream, as if from behind a rubber mask, he tried ripping out the tracheal tube.

Dr. Kriss was saying something to me. When I looked away from Zeke, I saw she had her hand over the recorder.

“Get out of here, Whitney.”

I took one last glance at Zeke as they pushed the IV back in his arm, his legs thrashing like eels. Dr. Kriss seized one and shouted at me: “Leave!”

4.

It was after midnight when I got back to the bungalow. I dropped the tape recorder on my bedside table and crawled under the sheets. In the dark, all I could think about were Zeke’s fingers digging into the gash in his abdomen, the damp shock of blood through denim, and Dr. Kriss—Get out of here.

There are times when I’m afraid to sleep. I’ll lie awake, running my mind down to nothing, and then dip into a half-conscious nightmare. I might have any sort of dream later on, but it’s a nightmare first, like a purge, and then I’m back at full attention, dreading everything until I somehow fall back in.

That night in Candy’s bungalow, I dreamt of being stabbed over and over without dying, and when I startled awake, I saw him for the very first time. He stood in a corner of my bedroom, dark, a faceless head, as if someone had thrown a black sheet over a body. I remember trying to blink him away—just a shadow on a shadow—and thinking that if this were real, I’d be able to move, call out. Somehow I lapsed into sleep again, and when I awoke next, he was gone. I went around in the dark, still half asleep, placing empty wine bottles in front of every window and door before slumping back into bed.

I retained no memory of this until I saw the bottles the next morning. There was no trace of an intruder—the doors and windows were locked. I felt stupid, spooked. Quinn and Zeke, all that blood—it had crept under my skin, invaded my dreams. That’s when I began to have my doubts, hearing echoes of Dr. Kriss—a science reporter might not find what you saw so strange—and Mort’s questions about my fitness for the assignment. I began to wonder if I really had the strength to cover a story like this.

5.