Previous Installments:
Prologue And Chapters I-XChapter XIChapter XIIChapter XIIIChapter XIVRADU-CHAPTER XV (A Novel by Patrick Kelley)
Pages-13 approximate
The black vulture waited. It knew it would have to be patient. It heard the crying of the infant, and having flown a great distance, she knew the human baby shared one thing in common with her. They were both hungry. The human infant’s young mother now fed the baby, which ceased crying as it hungrily gobbled up the food its mother now fed him. He was satisfied, and soon would sleep, if only for a brief time. The mother lay out as she allowed the rays of the sun to soak into her overly brown, overexposed skin. Suddenly, she called out so loudly, the bird flinched, thinking perhaps the mother of the child might have seen her.
Soon, the man appeared in response to the woman’s summons, and began massaging her back with the foul smelling substance people put upon their bodies. The man was getting closer and closer to the woman. The vulture watched impatiently as the man began removing the woman’s top. The woman pushed him away, however, as she looked all around. She was wary that someone might see her.
Soon, leaving the baby alone on the blanket, she quickly rose with the man and, taking him by the hand, led him toward the house. The woman lived there with the baby and the other man, not this one who seemed to only be around during limited times of some days, but the other man who in fact shared the house with the woman.
Before they made it to the house, however, the baby once more began crying. The woman returned, though she was agitated, and cleaned the baby, who had both urinated and defecated all over itself. When she finished cleaning the baby, she put a new clean diaper on him. The baby was unsatisfied, however, and so the woman fed the baby one more time, while the man stood there and complained. The vulture could tell that the man was very angry, which made the woman even more desperate to please him.
He told the woman he had to leave soon, so if they were going to do that thing they always did they would have to hurry. The woman said it would not take long, but the man told her he was going to have to leave, and so they would do it some other time. The woman however begged him to stay. She put the baby face down across her lap and sang to it as she burped it. Now, the baby was satisfied as she laid him down yet one more time.
The man said perhaps they should just bring the baby inside, but the woman said he might wake up and she wanted him to sleep. She was tired of having to deal with him all day, and she wanted to fuck before the man left. The man reminded her they had already fucked one time today but the woman was not satisfied. She wanted it one more time since the weekend was coming up and she would not be able to see the man until the following Monday. The baby would be fine out here for a few minutes, she said. He had not been in the sun too long and a little bit of time would do him good.
The vulture had watched the woman and the child for some time now. She was there when the strange man in the strange clothes came to see the infant, and held it as the woman and the other man stood there and watched. He seemed to be a man whom all others revered. The strange clothes that he wore were very much unlike those worn by most human beings. He seemed to be a very powerful man indeed, and the vulture knew she could not allow the man to see her. It would bode no good if he did. Therefore, the vulture watched quietly as the man said strange things to the infant and sprinkled something on him that seemed to be water.
That was just a few days ago. The infant was never alone at any time since then. She would have to wait, and be patient. She was hopeful the day had finally arrived.
For now, the woman seemed to have convinced the man to do as she asked, and so they walked to the inside of the house, leaving the now sleeping baby behind. The vulture knew the two people, the man and the woman, were going to have sexual relations. She could smell the pheromones the couple emitted, and those by the woman especially were powerful ones indeed.
The vulture spread her wings and walked to the edge of the house where she watched the infant and knew from experience the woman would be in the house long enough for her to do what she had to do. She hoped that no one would see her as she swooped down and, with her powerful talons, picked up the infant. The baby cried in horror of course. Unfortunately, she was unable to extract it from the thin sheet that the mother used to protect him from the sun’s harsh rays. She flew quickly away, certain that no one saw her. She would have to work quickly, just in case.
Unfortunately, before she made it far enough up in the air that she could begin her swooping flight to the south, something bad happened. The woman and the man saw her taking the baby. The woman shouted and cried, while the man picked something up and threw it at her. The vulture was too far up in the air, however, for him to reach her. All the same, she knew she had to get away. She made her way, swiftly, faster than she had ever flown in her entire life, until she made it to the spot where she needed to be. The baby for a few minutes lost his breath from the force of her flight, but now he resumed crying. The vulture wanted to kill him and eat him now, but she knew she had to wait.
She resumed her flight. That was something she could not afford to wait for, not since the man and woman did see her. She had no choice but to get away quickly before others attempted to find her. She knew somehow that other people would be looking in a desperate attempt to find the baby. She flew harder and faster than ever she had flown before. She had many miles to go to get where she needed to be.
The baby was once more silent. She slowed down from time to time in order to allow him to catch his breath. She needed to keep him alive. There was some place she had to go. This was an important thing she had to do, even if she did not understand it. She finally made it there, to the place from which she first noticed the baby and its mother strolling about the grounds. The man was there as well, the man who lived with the woman. She came to see him and they ate together, but after he left, she would sometimes stay around and talk to other men. Now here she was again, but it was not the woman she wanted to see, nor was it the man. No, those were the last people she wanted now to see.
From her perch of relative safety, she could see to the massively huge complex of buildings where people, countless numbers of them, constantly went in and out at all hours of the day and night. There was death in this place, constant death. That was what initially attracted her to the place, the tantalizingly seductive aromas of death. She one time intended to feed upon a dying man and even intended to hasten his death. However, the man had somehow managed to summon help in a way she could not hope to comprehend, simply by speaking into a very small object into which there could not possibly be any people. Yet, they came from some place, in response to his cries for assistance.
She followed the people the short distance to this place of death. Maddeningly, though this was a place of death, most of them never seemed to die. They healed, and they lived, and they left for the most part, to go on with their accursed existences eating flesh and vegetation passed through their fires and so devoid of any flavor or any other value, not even allowing it a respectable amount of time in which to become digestible. They engaged in wanton sexual activity with seemingly anyone that wished to indulge their shared weaknesses. They hid as they slept, in monstrous constructions similar to this one (though rarely as huge) that made the world further devoid of life from which to feed.
She was wary of eating one of them for she was sure their taste would be a fowl one. This was especially the case with this infant, whom she was compelled to eat now, as opposed to her preference of waiting a day or two after it died. She had no choice. The infant was still alive and was just now regaining its breath. It screamed now, and cried in horror. The terror that the infant emanated was exciting to her. All the same, she had to silence him.
She tore into the infant, which howled in agony as she gorged upon its torn flesh and its blood. Soon it stopped crying, somewhat quicker, thankfully, than she expected. She fed upon it’s inside organs and realized it was not the unpleasant experience she imagined it might be. Perhaps this was because it was a young human being. Whatever the case, she fed upon him, taking care to remove the sheet from around him, until soon enough there was nothing left of the infant but a thin, frail skeleton.
Her own hunger was satisfied, if only for a brief while. She had only one thing left to do. She looked toward the window, as she grew ever more impatient. She would have to wait, but it would be for just a little while. She could sense the person for whom she waited. She knew she had yet more time to wait. She knew what she had to do.
The woman named Grace Rodescu lay on life support. The bullet that nicked her artery luckily did no major damage, even though it lodged in her spine. Nevertheless, though no major organs were damaged, she lost a lot of blood. By the time Phelps discovered her, a mere twenty minutes after she was shot, she was almost dead. By the time she was transferred to the hospital by ambulance, she had in fact died once and been revived. The same thing happened in the emergency room.
She never saw Jesus Christ beckoning her to a white light. She did however see Khoska, praying for her soul. She wanted to hit him, but she ignored him for some time, until his prayers became louder and more annoying, and so she cursed him. She saw Grozhny, smiling at her, telling her to join him. He had the same glazed look in his eyes she suddenly remembered him having as she crawled into bed with him that night, right before she beat his brains out with the baseball bat.
She saw Grady, and Morrison, and many shadowy men and women, and girls. She saw Mikhail and Nadya. She wanted to ask them why they did to her what they did, but they merely turned their backs on her. She shouted, but they ignored her. They soon faded, as all the rest, only to be replaced by a figure in a dark gray robe whose face could not be seen, though two bright red orbs shone like beacons from what seemed to be his eyes. Somehow, she knew who the man was.
“Mircea”, she said. “I am dead then, right?”
She hoped she was but he did not answer her. She heard something behind her, and turned to see a trunk. A man stood beside it-a young man with long, dark, unkempt hair. He snickered, he giggled, and he cackled, as he wrote something upon a brick wall. She saw then she seemed to be in a prison yard and armed guards stood all around, but seemed not to notice her or the strange man.
She knew this man somehow. She had seen him before. Who was he? Her head was hurting, and the stress of the questions only made it pound that much worse. She approached him and, his back being to her now, she tugged at his shoulder. He turned, but he now had long, thick, flowing, wavy blondish hair and a moustache. He was larger, stronger, and met her surprised stare with an unflinching, steady gaze of steely determination in his bright green eyes.
“No, you are not dead and will not be until your time comes”, he said. “I promise you, you do not want to know when that time is.”
She could not help but look upon the writing on the wall, but before she could do so, she heard the voice of a man, beckoning to her. She turned to see the face of a Japanese man.
“You really must join us for supper, Grace”, the man said with a smile. He then laughed, and Grace suddenly found herself surrounded by darkness. She could not move. She breathed but with difficulty. She cursed in silent despair. She was yet alive, and she cursed. Somehow, she knew someone was with her.
Marlowe stood and looked upon the figure of the motionless woman, who was alive only because of some unfathomable machinery that forced the life to remain with her. He looked upon her in a sense of wonder. She knew him somehow, he realized, but it was impossible for him to know exactly how she knew him, in what way, or for how long. He only understood that, in some strange manner, she knew things she was not supposed to know. She had some knowledge of certain people in Marlowe’s life, people such as his Uncle Brad, people such as the strange woman who, while in a narcotic state, allowed herself to be marked with the permanently tattooed ink of a beard and moustache. She knew the mildly retarded man called Rhino. She knew the sad excuse for a female named Sierra Lawson. Somehow, she knew him. What did she know, he wondered, and how?
He delved into her memories, but they were a confused jumble of thoughts, mixed with dreams and imaginings that made it difficult to separate the truth from fantasy. He delved deeper and deeper. Then he finally realized something. The DVD, the recorded family pictures and home movies, replayed in a constant though confused glob in her mind. He realized something else, as well. This woman longed for revenge. More than a longing, it was a hunger and a thirst. This woman hated many people, perhaps with good reason. Still, what did it have to do with him?
He had to know more, and so he continued to delve deeper into her memories. Finally, he saw it-
“Oh, my goodness”, he said, and started to giggle. “You even know about”-
“Marlowe”, a voice suddenly shouted. “What are you doing here?”
It was Chou, Marlowe realized. How did he know where he was? He had to get rid of him somehow.
“You were supposed to be brought to my office. What are you doing in here? Where is Dooley?”
“I don’t know, he left”, Marlowe said. “The police came to see him. He was real upset when they finished talking to him. I think he forgot about me.”
“The police?” Chou was obviously alarmed, and quite concerned.
“I think they said his baby was stolen by a big bird of some kind. It was terrible.”
Marlowe then began giggling, cackling. As always, he tried to restrain himself, which usually had the effect of causing him to quiver and shake in mirthful madness.
“You seem to think it is quite humorous”, Chou observed, unsure of whether to take him seriously or not. “Come, I will walk you to my office. We have much to discuss.”
“Goodbye, Grace”, Marlowe said. “It was nice meeting you. When you need a fix, I’m sure you will find a way to let them know about it.”
“You-know her?” Chou was obviously stunned, even though he recently learned that Marlowe, like this woman, was a heroin user, though he managed to hide this throughout his evidently long period of use. Perhaps, he mused, they ran in the same social circles.
“I think she is going to die, poor woman”, Marlowe said. “That is too bad. She had so much to live for. Are you her doctor?”
“No, Marlowe, Sherman is her physician. Now, come along, we have to talk. How are you feeling about the lights now? Are they still painful?”
“There is nothing pleasant about them”, he said. “I prefer darkness, it is comforting. It soothes my nerves. Light is painful, and stressful.”
They took the elevator down to Chou’s office. When they arrived, Chou lowered the lights to a more comforting level, as he put on some music. It was a CD of Romanian folk songs. Marlowe listened with interest.
“What do you think of this, Marlowe?” he asked him. “I sent off for this on-line, I think it is quite good.”
“If I understood Romanian, perhaps I might enjoy it, but it sounds like gibberish to me. I hate it.”
“How do you know it’s Romanian, Marlowe?”
Marlowe tensed at this question, and bit his lip as he turned, a reaction that Chou noted.
“Actually, I hear you are quite the linguist, Marlowe”, Chou observed. Indeed, while under sedation, Doctor Tariq discovered that Marlowe was fluent not only in Romanian, but also in Polish, Turkish, and Hungarian. Additionally, he had a working knowledge of German and Italian.
“I guess you could say that”, Marlowe replied. “I even know English on an expert level, and have never studied it a day in my life.”
Chou found this display of sarcasm uncharacteristic, but Marlowe was not in the least amused.
“I am of Romanian heritage, and have studied languages privately, as a pastime.” he went on to explain. “Is that a crime?”
“Not at all, Marlowe, I just find it curious”, Chou explained. “Of course that is true about a good many things where you are concerned.”
In fact, a good many things about Marlowe Krovell were not merely curious to Chou, but alarming.
At times, Marlowe could engage in lucid and sensible conversations, but he invariably slipped into incoherence. Something was truly amiss, and the rounds of medical tests he had undergone were more than inconclusive. They brought up more questions than they answered.
At some unknown point in time, Marlowe Krovell had suffered a cardiac arrest that, by all rights, should have proven permanently fatal were it not immediately treated. Insofar as Doctor Chou had been aware, there was no record of any such occurrence. Still, the test results did not lie. At one point in the not too distant past-in fact, it seemed to have been very recently-Marlowe Krovell had died and, somehow, been revived. According to the full range of testing, which revealed bruising and scarring of his lungs, the intimation was the cardiac arrest might have come about in conjunction with drowning. As there was no record or knowledge of such an occurrence, this only heightened the mystery.
This was the least intriguing of the current batch of test results on Krovell, all of which had been triple checked to insure against contamination through some kind of lab mix-up. They showed that Marlowe suffered from syphilis-which, while certainly not mysterious, was disturbing. Chou noted it seemed to be a particularly virulent strain. Curiously, at the same time it seemed to be one of the oldest strains of the disease. As such, it should be treatable with antibiotics. Yet, somehow, it was as though the malignant bacterium that Marlowe contracted had somehow lain dormant for so long, in some strange way it had evolved.
Luckily, it seemed to be in remission. One possible explanation was that Marlowe’s blood supply was at as low a level as any living human being could possibly maintain life. His blood pressure as well as his pulse was incredibly low. This could possibly hinder the disease, and thus slow its advancement. Unfortunately, the very same thing might also doom him to a life of incapacitation. Medication required a certain level of blood-more to the point, it required a minimal amount of circulatory activity-in order to have any appreciable likelihood of success.
What disturbed Chou also was the dementia with which Marlowe seemed afflicted. His mental state, coupled with certain signs of physical disability, such as tremors of the left hand, seemed to suggest the syphilis had advanced into his brain. As of now, however, there were no signs of this, though it was true that some strains of the disease could hide so well they seemingly disappeared over time, concealing themselves until they further strengthened.
How could this be? When Marlowe was in the hospital, until after the beginning of this year, he had contracted no strains of syphilis, or any other kind of STD. Such an advanced stage as to invade the brain itself required an appreciable amount of time.
Nothing made any sense. However, there was no denying that Marlowe Krovell was clinically insane. He trusted Tariq enough to make that pronouncement, and had no need to see the patient to verify the veracity of the diagnosis. However, he was Marlowe’s family physician, and felt he should do so. At the same time, he was well aware that he was dealing with something that was entirely out of his league.
Marlowe was not in any kind of pain except when in direct sunlight, and even indirect sunlight made him noticeably ill. This as well as the insanity might be explained by porphyria. On the other hand, porphyria typically accompanied profound anemia. Although Marlowe did exhibit this symptom at various intervals, at other times his blood supply seemed to be abundant, at times even greater than normal.
Incredibly, it seemed as though his blood cells were replicating, and absorbed oxygen from some primary source besides his lungs, which were a secondary source at best. One consulting physician confided to Chou that Marlowe seemed to breathe only when he had something to say.
Over the last few days, Marlowe’s blood supply was at one of its most serious lows, and deemed in fact as being at a dangerous level of deprivation. The only thing to do was to give him blood transfusions. Massive amounts of blood transfusions, in fact, were all that could save him. It was all that could enable treatment of the syphilis. There was, however, another problem. Marlowe had contracted bubonic plaque. Though this seemed to be in remission, and was treatable, yet there was the potential that the massive blood transfusion necessary to treat it might inadverdently cause it to come roaring out of remission and pose a major health hazard. Therefore, he would have to place Marlowe in quarantine. Chou had no choice. If he did not do this soon, he ran the risk of endangering the entire hospital, both staff and patients. Chou felt it incumbent upon himself to turn to other more specialized experts. They were all as much in the dark as he was.
He was on top of everything else a schizophrenic, and due to his blood condition, this as well was untreatable by ordinary means. He had taken to having Marlowe anesthetized with a localized opiate, which seemed to work much better than any kind of injection, though it was nevertheless insufficient for Marlowe’s needs. It was for now his only option. What was he to do? He would have to try to explain it to him as best he could.
He dreaded bringing this up again. A mere three weeks previously, when Marlowe’s blood was at a dangerously low level, he informed him that he might require a transfusion. He had to explain what he meant, which was in itself an oddity. Most patients of even sub-normal intelligence understood what a blood transfusion entailed, yet Marlowe seemed completely mystified.
Once Chou made it clear exactly what he was talking about, Marlowe seemed completely horrified by the suggestion, and demanded he discharge him. He adamantly refused to discuss further the possibility, and for a brief while, Chou feared Marlowe might even become violent with him. Chou tried to reason with him, but Marlowe insisted that was the very thing that almost killed him before. Of course, Chou realized, he was obviously delusional, so he dropped the matter. Luckily, within two days, his blood supply had seemingly once more engaged in its mysterious replication process, and so, though there was no corresponding increase in pulse rate or blood pressure, his actual blood supply was back to normal.
Unfortunately, now his blood was once more at a dangerously low level, lower in fact than ever before. Chou had no choice but to assert his authority as Marlowe’s physician.
“Marlowe, my main concern is your physical health”, Chou said. “You have a good many illnesses that”-
“Birds and mice”, Marlowe said inexplicably. “That is how I got them.”
“Birds and mice”, Chou repeated suspiciously.
Suddenly Marlowe started once again laughing, cackling, as though in the throes of some private joke between him and God knew what. Chou stood by somberly, until he finished.
“Marlowe, we need to give you a blood transfusion. It is the only way we can cure you. Some of the diseases you have are quite serious. In fact, at least one of them that we suspect you might have is probably incurable, though it is treatable if it does turn out that you have it. The rest we hope to eradicate, but it will require a tremendous amount of blood. Unfortunately, there are risks.”
Chou took some time to explain the procedures involved and the possible side effects and ultimate repercussions if they failed. Marlowe seemed unconcerned. Chou was under no illusions whatsoever that Marlowe had the slightest idea what he said, despite the fact that Marlowe listened as though he himself were a consulting physician.
He was under no obligation to explain them to him at all, in fact, as he had express legal permission through his guardian, Brad Marlowe, to do whatever was necessary. Brad himself had volunteered to give him blood, but unfortunately, it was not suitable. Nor would Marlowe be happy about accepting blood from his uncle, at whom he was almost insanely angry. He refused even to see his uncle when he tried to visit him. He in fact refused to see anyone with the sole exception of one slightly older African American man by the name of Marshall Crenshaw. As Brad Marlowe had confided to him that Marlowe all but despised blacks, Chou considered this yet another oddity, and finally concluded that this man was, in all probability, a drug dealer.
Luckily, their visits were few and of short duration, and Chou could find no evidence of drugs or any other such paraphernalia smuggled to Marlowe by way of this man or anybody else. At the same time, it was not a great cause for concern, in that Marlowe’s pulse and blood pressure would make any illicit drug as nearly useless as any Chou might prescribe. It was an incredibly perplexing situation.
Now, Marlowe once more expressed displeasure at the prospect of a blood transfusion, but Chou informed him there was, unfortunately, no other option. At that point, Marlowe offered what seemed to him to be a solution.
“I will drink the blood”, he said. “That would work much better. You have to let me choose the person. Bring me a young child, preferably a baptized one. What would really be good is if you could find a young maiden, one who has just recently entered puberty, but has not known a man sexually. Or, if someone such as this is not immediately available, might there be a nun present? Blood from a devout nun is some very powerful stuff.”
Marlowe was obviously not joking. Chou merely looked at him in grim silence.
Chou of course knew a great deal more about Marlowe than his reluctant patient thought he did. According to Tariq, he suffered from the delusion that he was a person who lived centuries ago. It was not as uncommon a psychosis as many might think, though extremely rare nevertheless. Tariq considered it an escape mechanism in Marlowe’s case. In addition to his attempted murder, and the murder-suicide of his parents, Tariq suspected some form of long-term abuse dating back to some period in Marlowe’s early childhood. He in fact suspected both parents, and was especially suspicious of the mother. In fact, he suspected long-term sexual abuse.
“That is a fairly easy assumption to make, of course”, Tariq told him. “The thing is, it is not an assumption. Marlowe actually told me this. That is not the least of it. He also said he in fact murdered his parents, and then attempted suicide. He then insisted that ‘he’-whomever the entity ‘he’ supposedly is-actually saved Marlowe with the express purpose of inhabiting his body. It is all very complex. I tend to think he has adopted this persona as a means of dealing with the truth as he sees it. Otherwise, he would never be able to face up to it. In this way, he can purge the guilt from his system by means of confession and still proclaim his innocence, all while providing a valid justification for it.”
Of course, there was yet no explanation as to the onset of such a myriad of diseases, some of them of extreme seriousness. Where did they come from? Moreover, there was another mystery. Marlowe refused to discuss his past life, other than to confide, under sedation, that his given name had been Radu, and that he had in fact lived many centuries ago.
“Yet, most patients such as this have highly developed layers of memories which they wear like clothing. They are still every bit as delusional, of course, but the point is they are usually quite extravagant, and in fact tend to be highly accurate in their historical detail. The fact that he wishes to keep such memories to himself is most unusual. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is all but unheard of.”
After the sedation wore off, of course, he would revert to his usual foolish demeanor, making off-hand remarks that made sense to no one. At this time Marlowe was sedated somewhat, as well as he could be under the circumstances. Now, he was obviously starting to return to his usual level of lunacy, and Chou knew that any further discussions with him would be a waste of time. He prepared to accompany him back up to his room, in the limited access psychiatric wing of Johns Hopkins.
He told Marlowe to walk with him, but surprisingly, Marlowe told him he wished to sit in the patients lounge for a while. He was tired of sitting all day in his room. Chou considered this surprising, but on the other hand, Marlowe had become wholly unpredictable. His mental and emotional collapse had left him in a profound state of disarray, which Chou previously believed to have been due mainly to the incident of his parents’ deaths, and his own near murder. It all seemed obvious.
That of course was before the discovery of the syphilis, and the even more troubling evidence of bubonic plaque. However, the most mysterious thing by far was the potential diagnosis of porphyria. There was no medical history of this in his family going back four generations. Yet, it was a genetic condition, which was not contagious. Therefore, how could he possibly have contracted such a thing?
Nevertheless, in all the consultations he had conducted with every expert at John Hopkins and beyond, no one had any explanation for the seeming ability of Marlowe’s blood cells to replicate. This was unheard of, nor did there seem to be any genetic explanation for it. At the same time, without a doubt this was all that kept him alive, if only temporarily.
Chou walked him back to the psychiatric wing, and to the patients lounge there. Marlowe sat upon the most comfortable chair he could find, while Chou stopped briefly at the nurses station. After a minute, he turned and nodded to Marlowe, and then left. Marlowe was running behind time, and knew he had to work fast. The woman Phyllis was still there in the lounge, luckily. She was as usual clutching her Bible, which Marlowe realized she only pretended to read-constantly. He approached her, and she looked at him
“The end is coming soon”, she warned him. “Death and hell will be loosed and you, young man, will have your share in the Lake of Fire, and Hell, where the worm dieth not.”
As she said this, she pointed to his crotch.
“Hell is here in this building, Phyllis”, he told her. “You know that. It is down in the basement. You have the power to loose it all over the world. Well, you have the power to loose it here in this building, at least.”
Phyllis had formerly worked here on the maintenance crew, until the deaths of her husband and son in an auto accident for which she was at fault, having driven while greatly intoxicated, though she survived with minor injuries. Now, she was a patient. In her extreme state of paranoid guilt, she thought the entire world judged her harshly-which was indeed true of almost everyone that knew her, herself most especially.
She adopted a defensive persona that she projected onto everyone at the hospital, though she had made some slight progress because of her intensive therapy and medication. Nevertheless, she hated the world, because she thought the world hated her almost as much as she hated herself.
Now, Phyllis looked at him knowingly, as though a veil lifted.
“Are you that prophet?”
Marlowe cackled, and turned to insure he was not overheard.
“Sister Phyllis”, he said. “Your torment will soon be over. God has a mission for you. He wants you to go down to where the power center is. It is up to you, Phyllis, to put out the fires of hell. Do you really think the people here want to help you? Of course not, they mean to punish you for your past sins. They will never forgive you, nor will they ever allow you to forgive yourself, until you take matters into your own hands.”
“I know what to do”, she said. “But how can I get down there?”
“You have to wait until I clear the way for you. It will not be long. Remember, Phyllis, even if you have to forfeit your life for this sacred purpose, both your husband and son are waiting for you. They are waiting for you to join them in heaven, Phyllis. I can see them now. Just close your eyes for a minute and you can see them as well.”
“I-don’t want to”, she said. “I’m afraid to see them”
“You have to trust in the Lord, Phyllis, in the mercy of Christ”, Marlowe insisted. “Who do you suppose has them now, keeping them in his bosom, comforting them, filling their thoughts with joy and peace? They want you to join them away from this hell, Phyllis. Can you not see this?”
Phyllis closed her eyes, as tears streamed down her cheeks, while Marlowe extracted the cell phone his friend Marshall earlier smuggled to him. Marshall of course would do anything for money, or even for a reasonable hope of it. Now, he had yet one more reason, an even more compelling one than mere financial gain, to come to Marlowe’s assistance. In fact, his life depended on it.
The true yet now long dead Marlowe had dealt with Marshall, an African American drug dealer, out of necessity. The new Marlowe, once long ago dead and now returned to life, in a new form, a new identity, found the stored memories of Marshall to be most useful. As in fact was the drug dealer himself, for at least a short while.
The cell phone was the least of the aid supplied to Marlowe. What was undoubtedly the most important help Marshall promised to provide was a package.
Tariq should have received the package by now, though hopefully not too long ago. Marlowe had to make sure he was in the right place at the right time. That meant he had to work fast, as Chou had inadverdently interfered with him and threw his timing off. He still had hopefully enough time, but he knew he would really be pushing it as he called the downstairs maintenance crew and reported a bomb that was due to go off sometime this day, hidden somewhere down in the basement.
.“You know what you have to do, Phyllis”, Marlowe then said to the woman that was now a most vital part of his plans. “Are you ready to give these people the same hell they have been giving you these many months?”
Suddenly, the elevator to the basement opened, and some hospital guards and some maintenance workers entered the lobby along with some off-duty police that worked the hospital as guards. They were trying to spread the word as quickly as they could, pertaining to the bomb threat, in such a way as to avoid a general panic.
“Now’s your chance, Phyllis”, Marlowe said. “You know what to do. Stand over close to the elevator, and wait for me to divert everyone’s attention. Then, go down and do what you have to do.”
Marlowe now went about in a maddened state, screaming that a bomb would go off in the hospital soon. They were all going to die. As a result, pandemonium ensued as a good many of the patients, and quite a few of the hospital staff, started making for the exits, others trying to establish order, as one of the guards grabbed Marlowe. Phyllis made her way to the elevator, as suddenly Doctor Tariq appeared.
A couple of staff members accompanied him, while others tried desperately to deal with a good many of the other patients that were not so easily mollified. Marlowe himself feigned fear and demanded his discharge from the hospital. He looked around toward the elevator to see that Phyllis had entered and was on her way to the basement. No one noticed her actions, and so Marlowe screamed louder, then shouted in anger, as Tariq told the two attendants standing by him to take Marlowe into his office.
They took him into Tariq’s office, and stood by as a female Administrator entered, telling Tariq they needed to try to calm the patients as much as possible. Tariq informed her that was exactly what he was trying to do. Marlowe now for his part seemed to have calmed down considerably.
“I think he will be fine now that he is out of the brighter lights”, he told them. As he said this, Marlowe looked over toward where he saw the large package, which stood almost a full foot above Tariq’s desk. As it was also about half the length of the desk and slightly larger from front to back, Marlowe realized he was lucky the psychiatrist had yet not found the time or the curiosity to open it.
The female Administrator was telling Tariq the bomb threat originated from somewhere in the hospital, and was likely a hoax. All the same, the police bomb squad was on its way, and they were going to prepare for an evacuation just in case. She expected it to go smoothly, she warned. The last thing she needed was a bunch of lunatics, many of whom were criminally insane, out on the grounds and being lost in the melee because people that were supposed to be professionals could not keep their nerve.
The woman was obviously frightened and trying to project a persona of discipline, but Marlowe could tell she was unraveling.
She stepped outside the door and talked to one of the off-duty police now stationed on this floor. Marlowe noted she seemed to be laughing at the patients who walked around in circles, some moaning, and some openly crying, while others laughed and made different unintelligible noises that indicated they had no idea what was going on. Luckily, all of Tariq’s patients remained confined to their rooms in the limited access area reserved for the most profoundly disturbed patients, some of them criminally insane.
Marlowe looked at the clock on Tariq’s wall. He had very little time indeed, maybe as little as five minutes, perhaps even less. He looked around to the side of Tariq’s desk, at the package. Tariq would never open it as long as he was in here, Marlowe suddenly realized.
“This kind of thing happens from time to time, Marlowe”, Tariq assured him. “Not here, thankfully, but in the vast majority of cases, when such things as these occur it is the actions of sick individuals wanting to cause a panic, or even for the sake of a sick joke. When you stop to think about it, if someone were to plant a bomb with the intention of killing people, what would be the point of calling before it exploded and warning his intended victims? Do you understand what I am saying to you, Marlowe?”
“Please call Dr, Chou”, he said. “He will want to know where I am. I think he has been looking for me. I hid from him and now, I am afraid”-
“Is that right,” Tariq replied. “I could have sworn he saw you earlier. Very well, I will call him”
Marlowe giggled at his little joke, and Tariq seemed annoyed when Chou informed him he had seen Marlowe not more than twenty minutes ago. Tariq then mentioned something about the bomb threat, evidently in response to something Chou said about the matter.
“Ali did it”, Marlowe then said. “I know he did. He said something big was going to happen at this hospital today.”
Marlowe now suddenly seemed frightened all over again. He started ranting about how one of Tariq’s Muslim patients, named Ali, would outwardly say that Tariq was not a good Muslim, and how Marlowe overheard him tell another man something to the effect that this hospital would make a good target.”
Ali was a Muslim outpatient of Dr. Tariq, and on a number of occasions Marlowe had overheard him ranting about Tariq, and about how the American nation was Satanic and anti-Islamic, and thus deserving of death. He engaged Marlowe in conversation one day out in the patient’s lounge, and accused Marlowe of being “demon possessed”
“It shows in your eyes, and in your manner”, the devout Muslim told him. “You even have the scent of demonic possession.”
As he said this, he began to walk away from Marlowe as much in loathing as in fear. It was Marlowe’s great pleasure to involve him in his little escapade. Moreover, it was a believable story, from the perspective of the Muslim Tariq.
“Did you hear that”, Tariq asked Chou, whereupon he repeated what Marlowe said. Tariq then said he was quite sure the two things were unconnected, when suddenly the sound of a distant, muffled thud preceded the failure of the lights. Suddenly, Marlowe found himself bathed in his beloved darkness.
“Oh my God, something has happened”, Tariq said, as he terminated his call with Chou and then reached into his shirt pocket and extracted a cell phone. He called someone and expressed concerns about the well-being of the patients at the hospital, many of whom were on life support. He had his back to Marlowe as he terminated one call and began to make another, this one to his wife. Marlowe proceeded to knock Tariq over the head with a paperweight, just hard enough to stun him temporarily, as the psychiatrist buckled down to the floor. Marlowe locked the door. He then proceeded to open up the package. Marshall did everything just as Marlowe instructed.
He quickly revived Tariq, who awoke in a confused daze, unaware of what actually happened. He looked at Marlowe, who returned his confused gaze with an idiotic grin as he apologized if he hit him a bit too hard. He then demanded that Tariq release him from the hospital.
“I-cannot do that”, the psychiatrist insisted. “I would not do it if I could.”
“Oh, but you will”, Marlowe insisted. “And you will do it now. You have a package by the way. I just now opened it for you. I have an idea it might be from someone who wishes you ill will. Would you like to peruse its contents? I believe you will find it adequately visible from the streetlights outside your window.”
Tariq looked toward the now open box he earlier received that he assumed was a delivery of Korans and other Islamic reading materials he a couple of weeks previously ordered for the benefit of an Islamic study group he recently had approved for his Muslim outpatients. When he realized what he saw, it horrified and sickened him. When he realized exactly who he saw, he was decimated.
“Raghda”, he said in heartsick horror as he looked upon the severed head of his wife of thirteen years.
“Oh, that was her name”, Marlowe said. “I hope the children will not be too badly hurt by this. Children need their mother. What exactly will you tell them, when you get them back?”
Tariq now cried pitifully, openly, loudly, and Marlowe began to fear someone might hear him outside the door to his office, even though from the sounds of it, it was bedlam in the hallways. There were frightened voices of patients, as well as hospital staff and guards, trying to cope with the loss of lighting and electric, obviously feeling their way about the hall in as near a panic as possible without the ability to run from the chaos.
Tariq now looked in Marlowe’s direction, with a look of savage hatred.
“You-are responsible for this”, he said incredulously. “You will pay for this and if my children are harmed-”
“Not yet”, Marlowe promised. “However, they both will soon be handed over to some people who think they are quite adorable, I am told. Unless, of course, you release me. Do not bother telling me that Chou must approve my release, I know that. I will deal with that little problem as a misunderstanding, if necessary.
“How do I know you will free my children if I do as you say?” Chou asked this now in the throes of despair.
“The major thing for you to know is they will most definitely be raped within the hour if you do not do as I say. To make it look good, by the way, you are to sign for not only my release, but all your other patients as well. Am I clear on that? I want it entered into your laptop computer. Once I am satisfied, you can communicate with your children from a place I am sure you will find to your liking.”
Tariq had no choice, and so, under the light of the outside street lamp, he drew up Marlowe’s release, as well as for his eight other current inpatients. He then, as Marlowe commanded, entered this all into his laptop computer.
As he was in the process of doing so, Marlowe began the process of removing his teeth. He had earlier put this off, but now began manually extracting them. He found it to be an amazingly painless procedure, and so by the time Tariq finished his own discharge and began to prepare yet another, Marlowe had extracted seven of his teeth.
They were useless at any rate, and would do more good left behind, he mused. Unfortunately, it was not quite enough. Therefore, taking one of his seldom breaths-a very deep one-he began probing around the area of his appendix. With the sharp fingernail of his right index finger, he scratched open a long incision, and then slowly, delicately, gradually started to insert first his index finger. As he spread the incision open, he slowly inserted his entire hand.
He watched as Tariq began to operate his laptop, onto which he would now place into his hard drive a record of the unorthodox discharges of all his patients, a good many of whom were in fact dangerously psychotic. Marlowe cleared his throat in order to command his attention. Tariq turned to see the unbelievable sight of Marlowe standing there with what appeared to be his hand inserted through a gaping wound in his side.
He then watched in horror as Marlowe, standing not four feet away from him, manually extracted his own appendix.
.“Is it true that this bodily part is actually quite useless?” Marlowe asked him this after Tariq, trembling in fear, informed him that the item he had removed was, indeed, his appendix.
“Very good”, Marlowe responded, as he then flung the extracted item under Tariq’s desk.
“Marlowe, please, I don’t know what you are thinking, but this will not work”, Tariq said desperately. “You are obviously very sick.”
“Indeed, and if I remain here I will only get sicker”, Marlowe replied. “Chou, that charlatan, is determined to put blood into my body that would be the same as poison to me. I cannot tolerate blood from just any source. It must be of the utmost purity, from a person who is themselves the epitome of purity. I only do what I have to do. Do you understand?”
Tariq knew it was useless to reason with this obviously deranged patient, and so he completed the demanded discharges, as he tried to keep his wits about him. He started to realize the entire hospital was in disarray, and he only vaguely considered the bomb threat. Suddenly, the lights were back on, and Marlowe was suddenly agitated all over again. They fixed them quicker than he intended.
He listened at the door as someone knocked upon it. It was the female Administrator who had talked to Tariq earlier. She was now begging him to open the door and let her in. She sounded very frantic, and it did not take Marlowe long to ascertain the reason for this. The doors to the limited access wing of the psychiatric unit now were open, if only temporarily, as were the patients rooms, and they all came piling out into the hallways and into the patients lounge. They seemed to have free reign of the entire floor, in fact, though no longer under cover of darkness.
“Keep your mouth shut, Doctor Tariq”, Marlowe said, as he suddenly, almost as an afterthought, pulled his left little finger from his hand. Perhaps he should leave a foot, he mused. After all, it would grow back, in time. Then he decided that it might well take too long to do that, and in the meantime, there was the problem of how exactly he would get very far on one foot.
Instead, he walked all about the office, spitting on the floor, and did the same under the desk, where he had deposited the teeth, finger, and appendix. He had to make certain there was some evidence of his presence in this place. This would do quite nicely, in fact a little too well. Still, he had no choice. If he decided to live openly at some future date, he would have to deal with the seeming contradiction then. And so, he allowed some blood as well to pour out into the room, an effort that weakened him considerably, as he had precious little as it was.
“I can’t just leave her out there with those maniacs”, Tariq protested as Marlowe took care to soak the appendix, teeth, and finger in some of his blood and saliva.”
“Yes you can and you will”, Marlowe assured him. “Whatever they do to her is none of your concern. What they might do to you most definitely is. To say nothing of what I might do if you disobey me.”
Someone had grabbed the woman, who was now begging someone-anyone-to help her, while one of the off-duty police could be heard telling someone to let her go. A gun went off, but then the same guard started screaming in pain, as one of the more violent patients tackled him onto the ground, allowing yet another one or more of the psychotic patients to re-establish control over the hapless female, who begged them not to hurt her.
“Ahhh, you’re such a purty little thang”, one of the patients told her as she cried pitifully. She then screamed as Marlowe could make out the sounds of ripped clothing. Perfect, Marlowe decided. He would be able to get away, hopefully once more under cover of darkness, as everyone obviously had other things on their minds.
“You will now call this number, and from this phone”, Marlowe commanded as he handed Tariq the cell phone along with a post-it note upon which was written a familiar number.
“This is the mosque in Washington”, he observed. “What is this for?”
“Just call the fucking number”, Marlowe said in exasperation.
Tariq did so, by now oblivious to the horrified screams of the Administrator just outside his door, or the insane laughter of the psychotic patients who now had free reign of the floors hallway. He hung up soon, with a look of sheer anxiety palpable on his face.
“My children have been at the mosque for over an hour”, he said. “A black American male dropped them off there, supposedly at Raghda’s instructions. According to him, something bad has happened, but they will not talk.”
“I am afraid I lied”, Marlowe said. “Your children were in fact raped, and the entire thing is now on film. I am afraid their lives will be quite useless to them if the film becomes the newest internet sensation. I hear many bad people will pay big money to see such a thing. It is really quite shameful.”
He once again started cackling, as Tariq looked as though he was ready to assault his former patient.
“Oh, calm down”, Marlowe said. “I am joking. They were not harmed. They have been told, however, that you murdered their mother, because she discovered your affiliation with some shadowy terrorist group. That phone you just used to call the mosque, by the way, was the same phone by which I phoned in the bomb threat. Now, get your ass up away from that computer.”
Tariq stood, and Marlowe reviewed his files, and then demanded that Tariq transfer them to the main drive of his office computer. Since the maintenance crew restored some of the power, he might as well make the most of it, he decided. It took Tairq all of ten minutes to accomplish this task, as Marlowe began to wonder how long it would take to restore order. Obviously, he mused, Phyllis had done her job well enough that only those things of the most vital necessity, such as patients’ life support devices, was for the time being fully functional. Only portions of the hospital’s lights and electrical outlets now functioned, as the clock on Tariq’s wall yet did not resume operating.
He found himself actually hoping that Phyllis was now in heaven with her departed son and husband, as she had probably herself now died as a result of the explosion, or electrical short-circuit she had caused which lead to the previous blackout. He knew he could not wait much longer, regardless of the prospect of someone seeing him. Tariq was crying, and praying, but Marlowe felt the sudden suspicion that Tariq was preparing to assault him, thinking ot take him by surprise. Why should he not do so? He knew now that his children were safe. He had nothing now to lose. Marlowe suddenly knocked him over the head with the same paperweight with which he earlier accosted him.
He then checked the files on Tariq’s office computer hard drive. Everything seemed to be in order.
Then, he pushed the button on the strange device within the package from which wires lead into the severed head of the unfortunate Raghda Tariq, and to other areas of the large package. He then opened the door, and stepped tentatively out into the hallway.
The woman was now screaming pitifully. She had obviously been brutally raped, and the patients-many of whom were, unbeknownst to them, “discharged”-now dragged her back toward the part of the floor that was usually limited access, back to their rooms, to “have some more fun” as he heard one man put it. The fools, he thought. Here they have a chance to escape, if just for a short while, and here they are heading back to the place of their confinement. He headed in the opposite direction, back towards the stairs. Everyone else was gone, except for the one lone guard who had been overpowered, and who, if he were not already dead, soon doubtless would be.
He left hurriedly. He ran down the hallway, knowing he would be in a great deal of trouble if the bomb failed to go off. When the explosion finally ripped through the hospital psychiatric unit, Marlowe could hear it from four floors below. The personnel left behind in the hospital, to see to the potential evacuation of the various floors, now scurried in terror, screaming and crying. One woman passed out, and lay on the floor alone, as Marlowe entered the room of Grace Rodescu. The machinery by which she was barely alive once more stopped functioning. The lights as well were once more off.
He then found the change of clothing Marshall had managed to place inside an unused dresser just hours ago. He changed into them though he realized it was tantamount that he remember to take his hospital gown with him. It would not do for one of the staff to find those carelessly left behind in this room.
He then found the crowbar left for him as well, with which he furiously pried at the reinforced screen of the window. It would not be long now. Soon, he would be free and far away from this place of insanity-this place of living death.
Grace could hear the wings of some monstrous bird flapping, and heard the same ungodly call she heard at the Leighton farm from the black vulture that fed upon the farmers dead cattle. She could feel the wind from its wings as it flew over her. She opened her eyes. How long was she in this place? She was in a hospital, hooked up to machinery. Yet, the lights were off, as was the power. She was in darkness, hooked up to a machine meant to keep her alive, yet a machine that no longer functioned. She remembered then hearing an explosion, the wailing of sirens, and people screaming in terror. Yet, she felt all alone as she opened her eyes. Suddenly, the most foul, sickening odor she had ever experienced assailed and overwhelmed her. She looked all around her.
As she did so, she saw the bird. She saw Marlowe Krovell.
Marlowe was down on his knees, his head craned upwards, as the black vulture, perched on Marlowe’s shoulders, reached toward his waiting, open mouth. The bird then regurgitated what looked to be blood and pre-digested matter inside Marlowe’s mouth. It seemed to go on forever. Marlowe hungrily swallowed the nourishment provided from the creature, which then turned and, with an unholy cry, quickly flew away.
Marlowe Krovell stood and turned toward the woman. She was alive. He stared at her, unsure of what to do, as a remnant of the vile concoction he had just swallowed gathered around his lips. Grace closed her eyes. She just wanted to sleep.
