"Hello?" "Pryce?" "Annie?" "You shouldn't be walking around." "I'm okay, I'm okay." "Any pain or pressure?" "Just a little headache, that's all." "I guess I should thank you for saving my life again." "Thank God it was only a bump on the head." "Why are you thanking God?" "He let it happen." "And a slight bump on the head is exactly the wrong way to think about a concussion." "Avoid any physical exertion for the next 24 hours." "Sure." "Why are we in here?" "Oh, because Annie, before becoming a registered nurse, clearly was a Girl Scout." "I believe Eclaireurs Unionistes de France is the French equivalent." "She was worried you'd gotten bitten during the attack, and she knew the rule that all Girl Scouts know," "French or otherwise... bring the doctor the thing that bit you." "Autopsy time." "Oh, wow." "Right there, in the Oval Office, Mr. Johnson presents his own johnson with a mighty flourish, and he tells a congressman, this, my friend, is why we're in Vietnam." "A hundred years prior... another US president, one Ulysses S. Grant, never let anyone see him naked for reasons unknown to the historical record." "However, I have three-and-a-half theories why." "Number one, he had a infant-sized..." "Subject is female, Caucasian, 5' 8" and weighing 121 pounds." "Subject is cachectic with large patches of reticulated, hyperpigmentation on her chest, abdomen, and left anterior thigh, consistent with melanoma." "It's skinny and misshapen with that blue stuff on its skin." "Yeah, I got the gist." "Fingers are ossified, flexed into an immobile, claw-like configuration with thickened, hypertrophic nails." "All the better to rip your heart out with, my dear." "Admirable jaw flexibility." "An accessory sinus in the maxilla apparently filled with venom." " Sound familiar?" " You think this is one of us?" "Upirs don't feed on other upirs, we can't." "We'd get horribly sick." "Bone saw." " Well, that's..." " Interesting." " Sure." " Gray-mottled, highly vascular mass with extensions to the right upper quadrant of the abdomen and the base of the neck." "I have never seen a tumor this big." "That's what makes it interesting." "Jesus Christ!" "Very interesting." "Is that alive?" "The corpse isn't, by definition." "As for the tumor, highly differentiated structures reminiscent of a string of ganglia, suggesting higher nervous system function." "That thing's got a brain?" "And an appetite, apparently." "The tumor's created a fistula from the esophagus to a large pocket near the now unused original stomach." "A cancer that thinks and eats?" "LPS." " Sorry?" " Lower peritoneal squamous lymphoma," "LPS." "It reminds me of a tumor structure I dissected in medical school." "Let's have a look at Miss LPS' brain." "The tumor invests in multiple brain regions... especially the frontal lobe." "Reasoning, self-control." " The optic nerve." " Vision." "And the lateral hypothalamus." "Hunger." "Hypothesis: the LPS appears to be some previously unknown fusion of cancer and a parasitical organism." "By employing the rapidly replicating cellular structure of tumors to manipulate the nervous and digestive systems, it can be speculated that the organism is modifying the behavior of the host to allow... or even compel the consumption of the host's own species." "Which means you, of course." "Hey." "Destiny told me what happened." "I was just on my way to see you." "You okay?" "I've been better." "Where have you been?" "Can I use your phone to call a cab?" "I'm gonna head back to my hotel." "You're welcome to stay here." "Bedroom's upstairs." "Okay." "Ochoa." "Uh, I have to deal with, um..." "I'll explain later, okay?" "Okay." "Well, I got something for you." "Just let me warn you, it's... some crazy shit." "This a bad time?" "You've got company." " Just a girl." " Oh, yeah?" "How'd you meet her?" "Since when am I part of your investigation?" "Which brings me to..." "I found this." "Remind you of anyone?" "So, what are you saying?" "This is Spivak's grandfather or something?" "Have you ever seen even a father and son look exactly, completely alike?" "This is Spivak." "But... that can't be possible." "Here's the part where I sound like a fuckin' mental case." "I think we might be dealin' with some kind of paranormal, outside-the-box-type shit." "Actually, um... outside-the-box is good." "Focus there." "How did you know about Omul Negru?" "I thought your mom didn't teach you any upir customs." "You talking about this?" "And the drawing?" "Yeah." "Omul Negru, the upir boogeyman..." " You know about it?" " Yeah." "Just that it's some" " Carpathian peasant story." " Tell me." "Uh..." " I don't remember a lot of details." " Anything." "I have this upir friend, Nate." "Well, you can talk to him." "He's an anthropology professor." "Okay." "Call him." "Call him right now." "But... it's that important?" "You have no idea." "Well, I could take you to him if you want." "Yeah." "It was totally uncanny." "Exactly like you said." "He is completely crazy, him and the gypsy both." "I just played along and boom." "But I don't mean to minimize." "He didn't get into, what was it, the immortal space lizard shit" " that you were talkin' about?" " Yes, he's a lost cause." " What about Shelley?" " I was getting to that." " I'm pretty sure she's okay." " She was there?" "Someone was upstairs." "From the way he acted when I asked him," " guessing' it was her." " Guessing is nowhere near good enough." "This is my daughter." "I will set up a camera outside of his place." "Get me in there today." "Breaking and entering..." "You do know that is a felony, right?" "Oh, fuck." "Oh, fuck!" "Ah, fuck!" "Oh." "Fuck." "Dr. Pryce!" "Oh, thank you." "Thank you." "I'd forgotten or... couldn't remember where I put the," " the..." " EpiPen." " Exactly." "EpiPen." " You should have been using the containment module, sir." "You're right, you're right." "Protocols." "Protocols." "It's just that I got so caught up in this autopsy." "I still have more important work to do." "Maybe you really just need to get some sleep, sir." "No." "But..." "Klaus, it's just..." "Shelley." " Any sign?" " No." " You said she was here." " Actually, I didn't." " Don't you pull any shit with me." " I'd be upset, too." "I'd be pissed off, if my kid ran off, after taking care of her the way that you did." "Especially given how she's hangin' out with your fuck-up son." "Wherever she is, I'm gonna find her." "Okay." "You actually saw it." " Yeah." " The boogeyman is real." "I can't believe what you've been through." "It's the worst thing in the world, losing a child." "I think about her every second." "Does it ever get any better?" "I wish I could say yes." "Hey, but you can't blame yourself." "You took in this kid, you gave her a home, loved her." "You're doing everything you can to find her." "Did your cousin ever tell you who he was..." "The baby's father?" "Yeah, just some guy." "Dude, I'm not actually going to fuck her." "I'm just gonna take her home for the night, you know, for Facebook." " To be ironic." " Where's Destiny?" "Full day of mysterious female wedding rituals." " What's this?" " Our next job." "You should have seen it." "He had a whole slideshow." "Very compelling." "What kind of job?" "The fucking fantastic kind." "95 Lexington Street." "Do you know it?" " No." " You should." "It's a jackpot." "All the cops in western Pennsylvania, this is where they store the guns they confiscate." "Four times a year they truck 'em away to be melted down in a blast furnace." "Next run's on Tuesday." "And you're gonna rob it first?" "After." "Too many cameras at the storage facility." "We're gonna wait until it's on route, then hit the vehicle... here." " Armed guards?" " Yeah." "It's not Seal Team Six." "Two guys makin' minimum wage likely to shoot off their own dicks if anything goes down." "So, if Nate comes off a little full of himself at first, just remember, he really is a genius, okay?" "He's kind of famous in our community." "But you'll warm up to him." "He's super charismatic." "You slept with him." "Times Square, V-J Day." "The whole city was in love." "How old are you really?" "You know who else might be helpful?" "Nate's girlfriend, Hannah." "Really smart." "History professor at Columbia." "Ah, Annie, ma belle." " Good to see you." "Hmm?" " Yes." " Hi." "Roman." " Nate." " Oh, it's a party." " Now that you're here it is." "Come in, come in." "That attractive young lady setting the table is Megan Whitney." " Hi." " And you know Julie and Mickey Hughes." " Annie." " Hey." " Nice to see you." " Oh, and everybody," " this is Roman." " So, you're the baby upir." "Don't worry." "We're in the tribe, too." " You're upirs?" " Mm-hmm." "All of you?" "Nate told us about you, so we wanted to welcome you to the fold." "So... do you all live nearby or something?" "He doesn't know about East Cornwall?" "I told you... he's new." "Our little burg is about 35% upir, by my own census." " Where's Hannah?" " Later." " Oh, let me guess." "New student?" " No, of course not." "My physical therapist." "She's getting her degree in kinesiology." "Hmm." "Klaus..." "How are you?" "Welcome." "Dr. Pryce, um, you promised to get some sleep." "And I will..." "But as I was drifting off, I had a thought." "The specific anaplastic cellular structures resemble the procession of the horsemen in the Parthenon frieze, which reminded me of an article in The Lancet about equine telomeres in cellular immortalization, which has prompted a theory about the physiology of the Spivak creature's..." "Well, in short, drumming is helping me access my right brain." "I am making some real progress finding my shadow." "High." "High!" "Well, it's called potentization." "The more you dilute a poison, the stronger it becomes as a cure." "Homeopathy is generally considered a pseudoscience, Megan." "Call it what you want." "I have seen it work." "When can I talk to him about..." "He said after dinner." "If you don't mind my asking, what have you been doing in the way of sustenance since you turned?" " Whatever I could find." " Ah." "You've been hunting." " No." "Not really." " It's okay if you have." "I can't imagine what it would be like without learning nonviolent feeding" " from a responsible adult." " There is a support group." "No, honestly." "I'm not hunting." "The kid's fine." "Leave him alone." "Now, I have a very special amuse-bouche prepared." "What is that..." "Is it AB negative?" "That's for pishers." "This, my dear friends... is the Holy fucking Grail." "Oh, my God." "You want some?" "Mmm." "Jesus Christ." "Rh null!" "Oh!" "Oh, I know." "My parents told me about it, but..." "This is why I became a phlebotomist." "Come, come, come." "Thank you." "Mm." "The metallic notes on the end is iron-rich, and... you can tell the donor is a real meat-eater, can't you?" "Pretty incredible, right?" "Yeah." "Yeah, I guess." "What's, um..." "Rh null?" "It's the rarest blood type." "Um..." "I think there's only 40 donors in the world that we know of." "Sorry, it's just..." "I want to show you something." "Make sure to use plenty of disinfectant on Miss Ironic" " before you bring her back." " Ah, you wish, brother." "Hmm, I was just wondering..." "The cops are making two stops to drop off the guns?" "Yeah." "Why?" "Spread the business around." "I don't know." "You have to ask them." "The second stop is a blast furnace, which makes sense for the guns, but the first one is a medical waste incinerator." "So they're probably dropping off drugs, too." "I guess." "In which case, the smart play would be to make the move here... instead of doing armed robbery here in the middle of a busy downtown street in the middle of the day." "Unless you're after the drugs, too." "You said you didn't want to be involved in any new business." "Consider yourself not involved." "You're slinging heroin now?" "Who gives a shit if a bunch of rich gajes shoot up." " They're gonna do it anyway." " What do you think the wolf pack are gonna say when they see you tossing dope into your truck?" "They're gonna be psyched they got a Christmas bonus." "You think your family would support this?" " Think my mother would?" " Come on." "You sold that sebzilla shit." "That was powdered milk, Andreas." "I was running game." "You brought a drug deal into Destiny's home." "My home, too, Peter." "The Ruma are not drug dealers." "You're telling me what the Ruma are." "Until I brought you into this group, you were practically a gaje." "You had nothing." "You were nothing." "You really want to step to me, motherfucker?" "Oh, shit." "Oh, God." "I'm really..." "I'm really sorry, Peter." "I'm..." "I'm so stressed out... with the wedding... and the job." "I..." "I promise, we're gonna figure this out." "We'll both be happy." "So the drugs..." "Oh, it's just details." "Come on, we're brothers now." "Let's not let business get in the way." "Smells good." "Blood pudding." "Hmm." "What's in it?" "Immunoglobulin, amino acids, plasma." "We all bring a different ingredient." "Everyone shares it." "It brings everyone together." "Here you go." "That's good." "Fantastic, in fact." "Oh." "Did you want to chat before dinner?" "Yes, please." "I swear." "You have the most chaotic face I have ever seen." "This whole upper right quadrant seems to be... galloping' in a different direction than the rest of it." "May I?" "They say that beauty is determined by symmetry." "But I gotta say..." "I find your whole gestalt cool and unexpected." "I'm Aitor Quantic, by the way." "Shelley." "Why do you come here every day?" "I'm supposed to take expired food to the dump, but it's... it's completely edible." "They just want you to throw it away so you buy more." "So, I bring it here." "Waste not, want not and so forth." "How about you?" "What about me?" "What brings you to Rooster Poot?" "Well, that's what the residents call this place, but I've yet to see a rooster around here, and I wouldn't know a poot if I stepped on one." "But getting back to you." "Just needed a place to stay." "Well, as places go, it's upwind of the dump." "But I've stayed in worse." "Come on down if you get hungry..." "We've got pinto beans, all you can eat." "You think you actually saw something like this?" "Not like." "That's exactly what I saw." " You're certain?" " 100%." "Holy fuck." "No, no, no." "Missing..." "Here it is." "I'm always losing this fucking thing." "This is an illuminated manuscript from 14th century Norway." "It's him." "The Jörmungandr." "That's what the Norse myths call it at least." "It goes by other names, too." "The Omul Negru." "The Babylonians called it something completely different." "So, what is it?" "The myths say it was a serpent dropped into the ocean by the gods." "It grew so large, wrapped itself around the entire world until it was able to bite its own tail." "And it foretold the end of days." "When the Jörmungandr would constrict... choking all other life on the planet... the ouroboros." "The apocalypse." "It can't be real." "As a single entity, no." "I think I would have noticed a giant dragon wrapped around the Earth, but I do have a theory I've been working out with some paleogeneticists." "I think the Jörmungandr wasn't a single entity but our ancient memory of an entire species, our evolutionary adversaries, if you will." "Anyways, I think we wiped them all out, just like the homo sapiens did to the Neanderthals." "Think again." "And what would it be like, the one who survived?" "Well, if the folk tales about the Omul Negru have any basis in reality..." "It's... inconceivably vicious." "Like, there's this one story out of the Crimeas" " that is just totally fucking insane..." " Nate." "No, listen to this." "Actually take whole children and grind them up into sausages." "Shut up!" "Shut the fuck up." "What the hell was that?" "Megan?" "Megan?" "Megan?" "Can we just stick to what's important here?" "How well do you know this guy?" " Well enough." " Is he on drugs?" "Is he crazy?" " 'Cause if there's any truth to..." " I believe him." "Annie, this is world-changing, epic shit." "I need to get him in a room with a video camera and any documentation he has that would..." "Okay." "I'll get it." "You go talk to him." "Yes?" "Hi, Annie." "You look great." "Hannah?" "What's going on?" "We've got to get out of here." "Roman, we've got to go!" " What's going on?" " It's..." "Megan." "Where do we go?" "Where do we go?" "!" "This way!" "Follow me!" " Wait!" "My wife!" " There's no fucking time, man." " She's gone!" " I have to!" "I have to!" "Let's go." "Come on." "Hurry up!" "This way!" "Get in!" "Those were..." "Those were Hannah's cousins." "They're running in packs now." " It's spreading somehow." " Wait, you've seen this before?" "Just one." "Some kind of disease upirs are getting." "Great." "Like the fucking boogeyman being real wasn't enough." "Okay." "We've got to barricade..." "Annie, open the door." "We'll feed on the others and we'll let you go." "Oh, you're going to let her go?" "Total fucking lie, Hannah." "Says the guy who was fucking his masseuse." "She's a kinesiologist, you fucking psycho!" "Did you know that hippopotami are the closest relative to the whale?" "No way." "That's a true, actual fact, because, at one time, whales, or the, uh, mammals that became whales, they walked on dry land." "And then 50 million years ago or thereabout, they decided to pull up stakes and head back to the ocean from whence they came." "Why?" "One individual... let's call him Moe... he did not look like the others." "He... he was an outcast, and he was fat." "He had short arms and tiny feet, but see, Moe was soon to discover that being an outcast also gave him power, because he was forced to think for his self." "He was tough, 'cause nobody had his back." "So into the drink he goes." "He's splashin' around, he's havin' a grand old time." "Now the others saw this, and they went, "hmm..." "I want me some of that,"" "which is how fat Moe, the outcast, became Wet Moses... the first whale who led his pod out of their vapid, mud-caked existence and into the vast blue ocean." "A place where there is never a rainy day." "Hey." "So did you get my message?" "Should we invite the Nehamkins?" "Uh..." "Old Nehamkins or young Nehamkins?" "Well, both, because we went to their wedding." "But then if we invite them, we have to invite the whole Dimitri clan, in which case we'll need a crowbar to pry Uncle Pavlov off of every single woman under the age of 75, so..." "Nehamkins, yea or nay?" "I don't really have an opinion." "So..." "What are you doing here?" "Have you ever thought maybe... you're rushing into this whole thing?" "I mean, how well do you really know this guy, really?" "This guy?" "Andreas is "this guy" now?" "You've only been together for two months." "Did you get in a fight?" "I'm just sayin', you can read people better than anyone." "I get what you're going through... losing Letha, the baby, and now you feel like you're losing me, but you're not." "You need to let go, so that I can live my life." "Ride or die notwithstanding." "Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on." "Any sign of them?" "Not for a while now." " You've got bars on your phone?" " No." "My neighbor has a land line." "One of you should make a run for it." " One of us?" " I tore my ACL." " Thirty years ago, Nate." " Yeah, but it still hurts a lot." "Fuck it." "I'll do it." "No, no, no." "No, wait." "You don't even know where he lives." "Okay." "It's really easy." "You just go down the road, you go underneath the bridge." "He's right there." "You can't miss him." "Go." "Get going." "No... and then if they're still out there..." "Then I'll run." "We got one." " Open up!" "They're coming!" " No." "No." "If you open it, they'll kill us, too." "Annie, what the fuck?" "!" "Sorry, I can't help it." "Roman!" "The barrel." "Ah, fuck." "Any abnormal bleeding?" "No." "Is my cancer back?" "Is that why I can't feed?" "No." "No reason to think that." "And did you get a flu shot earlier this year?" " I don't have the flu." " So it seems, but as for the shot?" "Yes." "Yes, I got a flu shot." "Norman dragged me there." "At the pharmacy?" "No, Dr. Spivak's nurse gave it to me." "Oh God!" "Did Spivak do something to me?" "He gave you a flu shot, apparently." "Stop fucking with me, Johann." "What is this about?" "When I have a diagnosis, you'll be the first to know." "In the meantime, I'd urge you to consider taking drum lessons." "I never could have gotten in touch with my shadow without them." "The dark." "They're in the dark." "They're always in the fucking dark." "You feeling all right?" "Dark." "All the attacks are in the dark." "Here, in Hemlock, too, I turned the light on outside... they were fucked up." "They were disoriented." "The tumor is wrapped around the optic nerve." "Maybe they're sensitive to sunlight." "We just wait them out." "They'll have to leave before sunrise." "I now own a suit, and it didn't fall off a truck." "Two milestones reached." "I promise you we're going to get out of here." "Okay?" "Not just might..." "I'm the father." "Letha..." "She was my cousin." "No." "She was my half-sister." "I fucked her... and she died." "My mother, she forced me into doing it... against my will, against Letha's will." "I didn't remember anything." "God." "It was all part of some fucked-up plan of hers to make me the way she was, and it worked." "Letha didn't know?" "She thought the dad was an angel." "One day my daughter's gonna ask me... who her father is and I'm going to have to tell her who I am and what I did." "It scares me." "It scares me way more than those things out there." "If your daughter asks, you lie to her." "That's what parents do." "Oh, Christ." "You know, I'm scared, too, but you don't see me crying." "Nate, help us!" "Fucking coward." "Hi, honey." "Oh, fuck." "Oh, fuck!" "Girls, get over here." "We gotta leave." "Come on." "Yeah, I got, you know, how ever many you need." "We have hundreds." " Did you get one of these?" " Yeah." "I got to thinking, that stuff I said about symmetry and... your face and whatnot." "I say weird things sometimes." "I sure didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." "Because, you know, the other thing besides symmetry that determines beauty... big eyes... and let me tell you... you got that in spades." "Big eye." "You look like one of those Keane paintings of the kids... from the side, at least." "From the front, I'm a Dalí painting." "This was my dad's place, this mill." "Yeah, I kinda knew that." "You're pretty recognizable." "Well... so technically, you own the Rooster Poot." "No one owns Rooster Poot." "Over the last 24 hours, your friend, Dr. Pryce, went on a Google rampage." "Some videos of this drummer named Gene Krupa, but mostly about this place called Plum Island." "Apparently, it's a government germ laboratory in the '40s." "He found an old medical film and he watched it a bunch." "What's on it?" "You should probably watch it." "Um..." "Maybe it'll make sense to you."