Until You Are Dead by John Lutz Page B

himself as much as to Millow. "I'll be back shortly." He turned and left the room.
    But the door! He hadn't shut the door quite hard enough to latch it, and there was a slender strip of darkness where Millow could see out into the dim hall.
    And instantly Millow knew what he would do. He would step out into the hall, and he would run, as fast as he could, away from this dread room, away from their lifesaving, life prolonging drugs. And when he felt that he must stop, he'd run harder, until something in his ancient, half natural body gave. Millow's lined face broke into a grin as he climbed painfully from the bed. Death by running.
    He tested his legs carefully. Yes, there was enough strength in them, just enough. Millow moved to the door and peered through the crack out into the hall. There was no one, no one in sight. A pang of exultation shot through his body and he was out, out into the hall and running.
    At first nothing happened, and Millow's strength surprised him. He felt rather ridiculous as he ran unnoticed, like some white flannelled, geriatric track star, his bare feet plopping regularly on the tile floor. Then the pain came, hot and sharp, and Millow groaned despite himself. He could imagine stitches popping, tissue tearing, and he made his legs strain harder to propel him forward. The hall ended, and he turned down the corridor lined with cells, and he was aware of those blank, pale faces staring out at him as he passed. The corridor was silent but for the sound of his footfalls and his labored breathing. The pain invaded his body again and stayed longer, causing Millow's breath to catch, his legs to buckle. He was on the cool tile floor without realizing he'd fallen, and he struggled to his feet and began to run again. He made only a few steps before the pain sapped the will from his mind and he collapsed, rolling slowly onto his back. This time he couldn't rise.
    Millow lay there, feeling the pain come and go, for only a minute before he was aware of rushing, echoing footsteps drawing nearer. Leather soles and heels scuffing on the smooth tile.
    Dr. Steinmetz and two young interns were suddenly standing over him. Steinmetz's face was angry and appraising as he bent over Millow and examined him. "Get a stretcher," he said calmly to one of the interns, who turned and ran. Sighing deeply, Steinmetz stood, and the intern knelt and placed something soft beneath Millow's head.
    "It's too late," Millow said in triumph, and he tasted blood in his mouth.
    Steinmetz's face didn't change. He turned away for a moment, then turned again and knelt.
    Millow felt the bite of a hypodermic needle.
    "Can we get him to the operating room in time?" the young intern asked. "He's failing fast."
    Failing fast . . . The words were like a benediction. There was a vast and growing darkness in Millow.
    Â 
    D arkness, gradually giving way to a burning red.
    At first Millow thought he was dead, then with logical disappointment and instinctive joy he realized he was alive. He opened his eyes.
    Dr. Steinmetz glanced up from whatever he was studying in the yellow folder and smiled down at Millow. "How's the unwilling patient today?"
    Millow let his head sink deeper into the soft pillows. Dr. Steinmetz, the tiny white room he was in, the prison, all seemed to shrink until it was as if he were looking at them from a great distance. Then they disappeared altogether, and he was aware only of the throbbing that ran through his body, the inexorable beat, beat, beat of his artificial heart.

On Judgment Day
    Â 
    I t's on this bleak Dublin morning that they're about to hang O'Hara. We go far back, do O'Hara and I, to the time when I was a youth of fourteen on my father's retreat and fishing resort on the wild North Coast.
    It was then that O'Hara was the most wanted of the organization terrorists in Ireland, fresh from shooting the kneecaps off a treasonous pub owner in Londonderry. On the run, was O'Hara, and the English had never so much as