Dark Sundays

by Donn Cortez

  “No, but I am,” said Archie. “Got something for you. I took a look at that remote you fished out of the pool.”

  “And?”

  “No way it could have been used to control something as complex as a vehicle. It was a short-range radio broadcaster that sent one simple signal.”

  “An on-off switch. Any idea what it could have been used to trigger?”

  Archie shrugged. “Could have been most anything. Even a vending machine.” He smacked the glass of the machine, and the granola bar dropped.

  “Thanks a lot, Fonz,” said Nick with a grin. Archie flipped up the collar of his lab coat as he walked away.

  The hotel room with the toeprints on the window was registered to a Mr. Bela Giancarlo, who’d checked out shortly after the bears had been recaptured. Greg and Sara were in luck; the room hadn’t been cleaned yet.

  Sara unlocked the door with the card key and opened it. “After you,” she said to Greg.

  “Doesn’t look like the bed’s been slept in,” said Greg.

  “Bathroom looks untouched, too. It was only booked for one night, but nobody leaves a hotel room this pristine.”

  “They didn’t. Look.” Greg pointed at the carpet. The carpet was indented in four spots in a rectangular pattern. “Doesn’t look like they believed in packing light.”

  Sara was already snapping pictures of the indentations. “So they brought something heavy with them.”

  “Or took something away.” Greg inspected the window. It was divided in two, a square lower section and a narrow upper one. The upper one was designed to open inward, but only a few inches.

  “I think this window’s been tampered with,” said Greg. “See? Scratches around the screws holding the top part in place.”

  “If you undid these from the inside, you could open the window all the way. It’s narrow, but a small person could wiggle through.”

  “Like our barefoot woman. But going in or going out?”

  “Going out gets her on the roof. Going in gets her off the roof.” Sara shrugged. “Let’s process the room and see what we find.”

  Greg started by undoing the same screws and examining the frame. “Well, well, well,” he murmured. “I’ve got another fiber. And I’m willing to bet my next paycheck that it started its career as a piece of firefighting equipment.”

  “I’ve got a fine powder of some kind, over beside the indents.” She carefully scraped some into a vial.

  The rest of the search turned up nothing—their barefoot phantom had been more careful with her fingers than her toes.

  “Security footage should tell us what the guy who rented the room looked like,” said Sara as they packed up. “That and the credit card info should be enough to track him down.”

  “When we do,” said Greg, “let’s ask him how he feels about heights.”

  10

  “I DON’T KNOW if this is such a good idea,” said Ray.

  He and Catherine stood outside a hospital room. The staff members who had been exposed to the nerve gas had been taken there for observation; many of them had slipped into unconsciousness and weren’t expected to wake up for sixteen hours or more.

  “I don’t know what else to propose,” said Catherine. “Search teams haven’t been able to locate them. You thought studying their case files could give us some idea of where they might go—any suggestions?”

  “I’m afraid not. All I can tell you is they’re in a highly delusional state. There’s no telling what they might do in any given situation, how they might react. It’s quite possible they’re in hiding.”

  “Then I say we talk to their doctor—he might have some insights. Right now, at least he’s awake.”

  “True,” Ray admitted. “And he could slip into a stupor at any time. There is an antidote for BZ; a shot of physostigmine is effective four hours after exposure and would counteract the acetylcholine-inhibiting effects quite rapidly. Unfortunately, Dr. Wincroft has a history of heart arrhythmia, which would preclude any such treatment.”

  “So he’ll just have to ride it out.” She shrugged. “I talked to him a few minutes ago, and he seemed lucid to me. I say we give it a shot.”

  “If you insist.”

  Ray followed her into the room. Wincroft was sitting up in bed, aimlessly plucking at the front of his hospital gown, and looked over as soon as they entered. “Visitors,” he said. “Good. I was getting bored.”

  Ray stood back and let Catherine direct the interview. “Dr. Wincroft. I was wondering if you’d mind talking to us a little bit about two of your patients.”

  “Which two?”

  “The two who escaped, John Bannister and Theria Kostapolis.”

  Wincroft nodded. “Of course. I’m sorry, my memory seems a little fuzzy at the moment. What would you like to know?”

  “We’re trying to figure out where they might go, how they might be thinking. Can you help us out?”

  “I’ll do my best.” Wincroft frowned. “Unusual cases, both of them. Both of them presented with a host of symptoms. I’m having a little trouble concentrating. . . can you be more specific in the information you’re looking for?”

  Catherine nodded. “All right. Theria Kostapolis—her file says she suffers from a condition that causes her to believe she’s . . .well, dead. Any idea where she might head?”

  “I would think that would be obvious. A graveyard.”

  Catherine glanced at Ray. “I suppose—”

  “Ha! I’m just kidding,” said Wincroft. “Sense of humor’s important in my line of work. Bedside manner, laughter’s the best medicine, keep them in stitches, right? Anyway.” He frowned. “Theria Kostapolis is Greek. There’s been a lot of tragedy in her family, which probably contributed to the syndrome. Cotard’s is more common in women than men, and is often triggered by depression. Her history was no doubt a major factor in her depression.” He paused. “In fact, it’s no doubt influencing her actions now.”

  “I see. How about John Bannister?”

  “Bannister. Very different case. He has, uh . . .”

  “Corticobasal degeneration,” said Ray. “Dementia with Lewy bodies.”

  “Dementia, yes. Bannister’s dementia. . . very odd case. He actually believes he’s a spiral staircase.”

  Catherine frowned, but Wincroft seemed completely serious. “A staircase?”

  “Yes. Going around and around, from floor to floor. He’d invite people to step on him, try to twist his body into the proper formation. We finally had to sedate and restrain him.”

  Catherine gave her head a quick shake. “I thought he had something called reduplicative paramnesia—the belief that one location had been duplicated or transported somewhere else.”

  “Oh, yes, that too. Sometimes he was a spiral staircase at Disneyland, sometimes at a water-slide park or on a cruise ship.”

  “Those are all relatively upbeat places. I thought his delusions were darker, more similar to Ms. Kostapolis—”

  “Well, of course they changed once—”

  “Excuse me,” interjected Ray. “I think I can clear up any confusion. Catherine, do you mind?”

  She shot him a questioning look, but said, “No, Ray. Go ahead.”

  “Thank you. Dr. Wincroft, you mentioned Theria Kostapolis’s history. Very tragic, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, very.” Wincroft’s face clouded over. “All that death.”

  “What do you think affected her the most?”

  “It’s hard to say—there was so much to deal with for such a young woman. But I’d have to put my money on Troy.”

  “The city,” said Ray.

  “Yes. It must have come as a terrible blow when it fell.”

  “I imagine so. It was hardly the only Greek tragedy, though.”

  “No, of course not. That business with Medusa, the Cyclops attacking Philadelphia, the Minotaur eating that presidential candidate. . . truly awful, all of it.”

  Wincroft seemed close to tears. Catherine opened her m
outh, then shut it again.

  “I understand that Bugs Bunny was also involved in the patients’ escape,” said Ray.

  “Oh, yes. I should never have allowed them to correspond with him, let alone send away for that Acme Rocket Pack. I’m just glad it didn’t burn the whole place down when they flew away.”

  “Yeah, that’s a real stroke of luck,” said Catherine. “I think that’s all we need for now, Doctor. Thank you for your time—you should probably get some rest now.”

  “As if I could sleep with all these dragonflies in here. Shoo! Go away!” He batted away an invisible bug in front of his eyes.

  Out in the corridor, Catherine turned to Ray and said, “Okay, I’ve seen a lot of bizarre things in this job, but that was weird on an entirely different scale.”

  “It’s called confabulation. The subject may appear lucid, even cooperative, but will try to justify the most outrageous statements. He isn’t trying to lie to us—his mind is just working in a very different way. Any possibility suggested by our conversation will seem entirely credible, and he’ll use whatever knowledge he possesses to rationalize and explain away the situation. If I went in there and set the bed on fire, he might thank me for putting on such an instructive display for his Cub Scout troop.”

  She sighed. “So anything he tells us will be worthless. Got it.”

  “It won’t last forever. Concrete illusions—like the dragonflies he was seeing—tend to get smaller as the drug’s influence lessens. Seeing insects is better than seeing snakes.”

  “Or wabbits,” said Catherine.

  Bannister knows that entering the palace is a mistake.

  It’s topped with minarets, the encircling high white walls spiked with rusting iron. Carrion birds perch between, calling noisily and occasionally flapping their large, ragged wings. Giant blind eunuchs with battle axes stand guard at the entrance, turning their empty gaze on every visitor who passes between them.

  Inside, the thick Persian carpet underfoot is woven with an intricate design of goat-headed demons and flames, and it begins to writhe if Bannister’s gaze lingers on it too long. But the air is cool and inviting, and Theria seems drawn to the place.

  The rugs end where the dunes begin. They seem to go on forever, to fade into the distance beneath a merciless sun. Mirages dance on the horizon, flickering images promising wealth, comfort, food, drink.

  It’s a trap.

  Bannister supposes they’ve been lucky so far. They’re in hell, after all, and no one can travel forever in such a place before being made to suffer. It’s what the place was designed for.

  The cool air on his face is no more real than anything else. Bannister can feel the heat inside him, raging like a fever, and he knows that to set foot on that sand is never to return. They will trudge endlessly, salvation always mocking them just a few steps ahead. If they slow or stop, sandstorms will drive them onward, scouring the flesh from their bodies.

  He grabs Theria’s shoulder with his unbound arm. “No,” he says.

  “Let me go.”

  “You won’t find any rest there. It’s an illusion—”

  “It’s what I deserve.”

  “No.” He pulls her around to face him, while his demonic limb begins to twitch, thumping elbow to ribs. “That’s not true.”

  “I’m rotting inside. Let the sand cover my bones.”

  “You think it’s that easy? That obvious? It’ll never work, Theria. Look.” He turns her roughly, points into the distance. “See? Jackals.”

  “I see them.”

  “They’ll dig you up, do horrible things to you. I know, I’ve seen places like this. Traps, everywhere.” He glances around, his nerves on fire. “IEDs. Snipers. Ambushes. You wouldn’t think so much death could hide in so much nothing, but you’d be wrong. I was.”

  And now something flickers in the depths of her eyes. Recognition of his pain. It’s one of the things that drew Bannister to her, that even in the midst of her own torment, she can recognize the suffering in him. Pain makes people selfish; that was a hard truth Bannister learned long ago.

  But not Theria. She hasn’t run from their prison out of self-interest—she’s done it because Bannister asked her to. She’s done it because Bannister needs to finish this one last mission, and she will not deny him. Bannister loves her for that, even though she’s no longer capable of returning that emotion. He knows that, and knows it doesn’t matter.

  The demon coalesces out of a whirlwind of sand right beside them. Its skin glows like red-hot metal, and ram’s horns curl from its forehead. It’s wearing a tuxedo.

  “Is there a problem here?” it asks pleasantly.

  “No,” says Bannister.

  “Ma’am?”

  Theria doesn’t answer. The demon reaches for Bannister.

  Bannister’s training and reflexes take over. He hits the demon with his free hand, very hard, where the solar plexus would be in a human being. The demon grunts in pain and surprise, but before he can react, Bannister has stepped forward and slammed his elbow into the creature’s snout. Thick ichor splatters from its nostrils. It falls to the thick carpet with a thump.

  And then Bannister is running, dragging Theria along with him, his possessed arm flapping wildly with excitement. He hopes they can make it out in one piece.

  Ray looked up from the file he was reading when Catherine knocked on the frame of his door. “Ray, one of our escapees just turned up.”

  Ray put down the file and got to his feet. “Which one?”

  “John Bannister. Radio car picked him up on the Strip.”

  Ray grabbed his jacket and slipped it on as they walked. “What was he doing?”

  “Just sitting at a bus stop, watching the crowds go by. Wouldn’t have attracted any attention if he didn’t have blood on his shirt.”

  “And Theria Kostapolis?”

  “Still missing.”

  John Bannister, shackled and dressed in an orange jumpsuit, didn’t look up when Ray entered. His gaze remained on the center of the table he was handcuffed to, though there didn’t seem to be anything in particular to stare at. Ray wondered what it was Bannister saw.

  Ray sat down on the other side of the table. “Mr. Bannister,” he said. “My name is Ray Langston. I work for the Las Vegas Crime Lab, but I’m also a doctor. I was wondering if you’d be willing to speak with me.”

  No reply.

  “Is it all right if I call you John?”

  Nothing.

  “John, I know you’ve been through a lot. I know about your medical condition and about the gas you’ve been exposed to. But you’re safe now; no one’s going to hurt you here.”

  Bannister’s eyes flickered to the side, a quick evaluating glance, then back.

  “I don’t know what you’re seeing right now,” Ray continued, “or what you’ve experienced in the last twenty-four hours. But I’d like to. And in return, I hope I can make some of those visions go away. I can’t promise to banish all of them, but I’ll do my best to help you. I’ll be your anchor to reality, if you’ll let me.”

  Bannister swiveled his head slowly to look at Ray. Stared at him for a long moment. “So that’s how you’re going to play it. I mean, I knew he’d go back on his word—I’m not stupid—but I wondered what kind of approach would be used. Admitting that he lied is too honest, of course. Not in his nature.”

  “Who are you talking about, John?”

  “Your boss. I’m a little unclear on exactly what to call him—why don’t you pick one of his titles and we’ll go with that?”

  Ray frowned. “I’m afraid I’m at something of a loss, John. Can you humor me and pick one for me?”

  Bannister sighed. “Sure. How about Lucifer? That’s a classic.”

  “Lucifer. All right. Well, I don’t work for Lucifer, John. I work for the Las Vegas Crime Lab.”

  “A crime doctor.”

  “If you like. I examine crime scenes instead of patients, but for the same reason: to get to the truth.”
>
  “Truth? There’s no truth in hell. I was told we’d be left alone, and here I am in a cage.”

  “You’re not in hell, John. You’re in a police station. You escaped from a medical facility where you were being treated for CBDS, along with another patient. That’s the truth—anything else you’re experiencing is a hallucination.”

  “Except you, of course.” There was the slightest hint of amusement in his voice.

  Ray smiled. “I see the problem. But acknowledging that you might be hallucinating is the first step toward reality.” He reached out gently and touched Bannister’s left hand with his own. “Tactile illusions aren’t usually a symptom with CBDS or BZ. You can feel that, can’t you?”

  “Yes. But I already know you’re real.”

  “Good. I’ll like to—”

  “You’re a real demon. I’m chained in a real dungeon.” He yanked on the handcuffs for emphasis. The fingers on one hand twitched, spasming like a bug having a seizure. “This is really hell. I know why I’m here, too: you want to know where Theria is, so you can capture and torment her. We jumped through all your hoops—I’m sure you found it vastly amusing—and now you’re tired of playing the game. But I won’t tell you where she is.” He met Ray’s eyes defiantly. “And that’s real, too.”

  Ray considered his next words carefully. Confabulation didn’t necessarily mean cooperation; BZ symptoms or dementia could also produce hostility and combativeness.

  “All right, John. I understand that you don’t trust me. But think back. Don’t you remember being a patient? Being treated by doctors?”

  “I remember dying.” His voice was flat and without inflection, but Ray knew that was simply another of the symptoms that the BZ produced. “They fooled me for a long time, telling me it was a clinic and that I was being treated, but Theria showed me the truth. I was already dead. I died in Iraq, but I brought something with me.”

  “What did you bring with you, John?”

  “A canister of nerve gas. I stole it from a munitions dump. I think it was what killed me—that’s why it crossed over with me. It must have leaked.” He stared blankly ahead, his eyes wide and unblinking. “I died in my bed, in my sleep. That’s where I hid it, under my bed. And then one morning I woke up and everything was different.”