Habeas Corpses

by Wm. Mark Simmons

  Mengele Prime.

  His wheelchair was momentarily abandoned and he lay on a small couch that had probably been carried in for this "battlefield" procedure. At least I hoped they had just brought it in. It didn't match the rest of the décor and you don't want people doing highly dangerous direct transfusions if they regularly mix their art nouveau with their art deco. The original Mengele looked like nothing as much as an ancient mummy being prepared for a fresh round of wrappings and vestments.

  Only . . . tock tick: he wasn't getting older, he was starting to get younger!

  As I watched, his crinkled, parchment skin began to lose its papery look. Livered age spots were starting to fade even as the pale, pale hue of his epidermis took on a faint hint of color. In just a few minutes he had turned back the clock, moving from a centenarian to a man merely in his nineties. The Death Angel of Auschwitz, The Mangler, the Evil Genie of Eugenics, was being reborn for another generation, perhaps for all time, in this hour, in this place . . .

  And by the power of my blood!

  He trembled and groaned as his ancient flesh convulsed and the infinitesimal timepieces at the heart of each cell shivered into reverse. The couch was short but still wide enough that there was no danger of his rolling off. And he didn't need restraining straps while the nurse who looked like a cross-dressing truck driver sat beside him. Still, the needle was jostled in his arm and a small cranberry tear wept from the place where he received my unholy communion.

  There was no doubting what had to be done and I jumped with only the slightest hesitation.

  * * *

  I should have known better. The previous incursions involved victims who were caught completely off-guard. My last fleshnapping bypassed a competing psyche altogether.

  But, as I said, the Mengeles were quick studies. They learned, adapted, prepared. Counterpunched.

  I jumped into the body of a feeble old man. There was nothing, however, feeble about the intellect waiting for me inside.

  Ahhhh, Cséjthe! I was wondering when you would return.

  As easily as I had knocked over and trampled the previous psyches I had run into, I now found myself put into a psychic half nelson by this current encounter. And as much as I struggled to free myself it was becoming abundantly clear that I was completely and effectively trapped. Maybe Mengele had more experience in wrestling personal demons: I was thoroughly pinned to the mental mat of his consciousness.

  You'll never get away with this, Mengele! I grunted impotently.

  My dear Mr. Cséjthe, I have always gotten away with "it." Do you know what I used to say to my Juden guinea pigs back in Auschwitz? "The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it." It was true then and it continues to be true today. Most of the filth that thinks of itself as "mankind" is merely cattle, fit only to serve the purposes of its Masters. Their herd mentality only leads them to the slaughterhouse that much more quickly.

  Oh, yeah? I was a little short on defiant comebacks and it was the best I could come up with for the moment.

  Yes. And now you have to decide, Mr. Cséjthe, whether you want to eat the hamburger or be the hamburger.

  Meaning?

  If I had more time I could construct some sort of electromagnetic device to restrain your noncorporeal essence. As things stand now I have one of three courses of action. One, I could continue to restrain you by the power of my superior will and intellect . . .

  But you gotta sleep sometime.

  Agreed. So, two, I could strike a deal that would put us on the same side—

  Not bloody likely!

  A mutually agreeable arrangement, then. I have things that you want; you have something that I want.

  What do you have that I want?

  Your body, for one.

  Yeah, and I suppose you'll just give it back.

  In time. If I can successfully clone your preternatural flesh and your unique blood-producing marrow, then you can have your pick of the original or any number of copies.

  Sounds like I might be in for a bit of a wait. Unless you have some sci-fi short cut to speeding up the maturation process.

  Alas, no. This is reality, Mr. Cséjthe, not some hack writer's fevered dream. But what is twenty to thirty years compared to losing your body forever? Then there is also the matter of your wife and daughter . . .

  Jenny and Kirsten are dead. You can't hold them hostage.

  I have their DNA. They are already reborn anew.

  Big unfucking deal! All you've done is duplicate their genetic material. That's not the same thing as what and who they really are. Did you make backup copies?

  You suspect I would create multiple hostages?

  I'm pointing out that if you make more than one Jenny, which one is really the woman I married? You've taken the sacred concept of personhood and turned it into a carnival shell game. Spiritual three-card monte. Three Jennies? Which one contains the original soul? Shuffle 'em up and make us guess. And assuming that one clone even ends up with Jenny's soul, what about the other two? Do they get dupes or whatever's next in the queue? Or do they get anything at all? You may be able to clone biological matter but what about the non-material? Is it immaterial?

  Does it matter so much to you, Cséjthe, as long as you get your wife and daughter back?

  I can see where the question of a person's soul has never been an issue for someone like you, asshole. The problem is I don't know that I'd get my wife and daughter back! What you're doing might be no different than finding a woman and child who resemble my deceased family and performing enough plastic surgery to make them physically identical but no more duplicates in mind and personality than complete strangers. And, at the other end of the spectrum, there's the possibility that you would be doing something much worse.

  Worse?

  Check your Bible, Igor. Jesus said something interesting in the twelfth chapter of Matthew about what happens when a spirit departs from the body and then tries to come back later. It seems you may get some renters who weren't listed on the original lease. Occupants who are likely to do way more damage than any security deposit can cover!

  Then perhaps you should be worried about returning to your own jar of clay.

  I've been doing nothing but, Doctor Demento. Let go and I'll do a quick bed check.

  I think not. Your body isn't going anywhere for the time being.

  So I noticed. The point is you think you're all hot snot when it comes to Xeroxing the human genome but you're just cold boogers when it comes to the metaphysical.

  The metaphysical?

  Like the question of what rushes in to fill the void once you've set up the housing. You may have hostages, they may look like my wife and daughter right down to their mitochondria, but I'm betting that the hearts and souls of my family are beyond any human reach now. They've gone where science cannot yet reach and may never go.

  Then let us speak of something less theoretical and closer at hand: the woman, Deirdre.

  Deirdre?

  Even now she is in surgery where my promise to the Kellerman woman is being fulfilled. If all goes well my little protégé will finally obtain a body that will not rot out from under her in a matter of days or weeks. As soon as the nerves in her neck are properly fused to the host's central nervous system, the original head will be excised and removed so that a full transfer of conscious and autonomic functions can take place and symmetry can be finalized. I assume that you would prefer that your friend's head not be discarded.

  Bastard!

  And if, as I suspect, her consciousness should survive in the same manner as the Kellerman woman's, there's a good chance of finding her a host body as well. Possibly cloning her her own over time.

  I struggled but still found I was unable to extricate myself from his mental grasp. Is that all?

  All? What? Would you like for me to offer wealth? Riches? Power? Something else to sweeten the deal?

  Oh yeah, that would do it. Move me into a higher tax bracket and I'll h
appily spit in God's eye, betray the memory of my family, and buddy up with the greatest child molester and murderer of all time. No, shithead, you said three courses of action. I think we've eliminated one and two from the list.

  Agreed. The third option is actually my preference, Cséjthe. I have everything I need without your cooperation. Your body continues to function separate from your consciousness. And I don't believe I can trust you to keep any promises that violate your cattle code of ethics. So the third and preferable course of action is to simply snuff out your dislocated mind like a pinched candle flame.

  Oh. Kill me. Now there's a surprise.

  Really?

  No. Only in that you're trying to talk me to death, first.

  I needed time. While it is obvious that my will is stronger than yours, holding you is one thing. Destroying you may take a little more of an effort. As your transformative blood drips into my veins, it makes my flesh younger, my body stronger. As the vessel regains youth and vitality, the mind is invigorated, as well. Even now my hold upon your own consciousness grows ever stronger. It will not be long before I can crush your thoughts as effortlessly as I would crush the hollow, matchstick bones of a bird or a mouse!

  And the pressure that surrounded my thoughts began to increase, pressing in upon my consciousness as if my head were still corporeal and being squeezed within a heavy steel vise.

  I heard a shout and thought it was my own. Then the pressure lessened a little and I could see through Mengele's eyes. An alarm had gone off and the room was filling up with security goons.

  Someone was pointing at one of the monitors. A switch was thrown and the image was duplicated on the large, master screen above the rest.

  The view was of the outside. Specifically the front doors. Which were wide open. No one was in sight, though.

  Of course the Wendigo and her army of Amerind guardian spirits probably wouldn't register in the electromagnetic spectrum so they wouldn't be picked up by the security cameras. But something would have had to have been done about that big Ttsilolni—the swastika—over the entrance for them to breach the outer doors.

  Someone turned a knob and the outside security camera zoomed in, enlarging the entrance area. There was no eagle, no wreathed swastika, no "Brut Adler" chiseled above the entrance, only an amorphous mass that rippled and writhed over the rough stone.

  "What is that?" a guard asked.

  The camera zoomed in closer. The mass was predominantly orange, shot through with black.

  Orange and black suddenly rose up and obscured our vision completely. Mengele reached up and brushed at his eyes. I tried to pull away, actually getting halfway out of his head before his mind grabbed hold again. His fingers, meanwhile, came away with a captured insect. It was a monarch butterfly; its orange-and-black wings dusting his fingers with a fine powdering of scales.

  Another one fluttered by to land on his arm near the needle feeding his vein.

  "Where are they coming from?" he wheezed.

  He might well ask that in the larger context: monarch migration paths took them from Florida, the coast of Texas, and the mountain forests in Central Mexico to the Canadian borderlands and back again. But while they traveled various routes over the Eastern Plains and along the West Coast, the migratory patterns avoided the Rocky Mountains. And sightings were rare during the summers and never during the winters.

  We weren't in a large room so it didn't take that long to answer his question in the smaller context: a dozen more orange-winged invaders were crawling between the metal vanes of the air vent and spilling down from above.

  As another wave of monarchs fluttered over, circling Mengele like curious gliders, I made another attempt to pull free. This new distraction was sufficient: I popped out of the old man's carcass like a cork from a champagne bottle. He stopped waving at the insects long enough to make another mental grab for me and he, too, popped out. Mengele's body collapsed and the nurse and doctor were suddenly faced with the double duty of shooing butterflies while checking their patient's vital signs.

  Meanwhile I had a very tenacious foe still attempting to put me back in a psychic headlock. Any hope that a sudden shock had killed him disappeared as I noticed the silver cord that snaked back to his physical body. I was facing an astral projection of the Death Angel of Auschwitz, not his ghost. His vague, translucent form resembled the photographs of Mengele in his prime, not the wizened old man sprawled on the couch. Which reminded me: with every minute that ticked by, his body was absorbing more of my blood from the transfusion and growing younger and stronger in the bargain.

  He lunged for me and I decided, strategically, that the floor beneath my feet just wasn't that substantial, after all. I dropped like a stone in a well, catching a glimpse of hundreds of butterflies on the floor below flying reconnaissance patterns.

  Just in time I decided the basement floor was solid and bounced to a stop before losing myself in the mountain's bedrock beneath. I took a moment to examine my plan and prioritize. I needed to find Deirdre and stop the operation before it was too late. I needed to return and stop the transfusion before it was too late. I probably needed to hook up with Wendigo and her troops to: (a) get their help and (b) keep them from harming either of us on their bloody rampage before it was too late.

  And to cover the most ground the fastest, a physical body would be an asset. So, first on the list: head for the upper levels and look for another bloody staff member on the way.

  I was five ghostly strides into my revised plan when Mengele bungee-jumped into the basement behind me. Like I said, a quick study.

  I ran.

  "I'm not letting you escape, again," he called after me. "I'm not safe as long as you are loose!"

  "Ditto, Dr. Frankenfurter." I dove through the wall next to the door and found myself in a narrow service corridor. I turned left and ducked around the corner. It was a dead end. Too late to reverse my steps, I waited, hoping he would go the other direction.

  He didn't. "Now you're trapped," he said, coming around the corner and blocking the entire width of the passage.

  "Boy, you're really new at this, aren't you?" I dodged sideways through another wall. I found myself in a room full of corpses.

  The morgue that served Brut Adler was only set up to accommodate up to four cadavers at a time. Current events had forced the staff to stack bodies on the tables and the floor like so much firewood. As I picked my way through the constricted maze of dead flesh, I fancied I could hear vague stirrings from within some of the piles. If I hung around long enough maybe the dead would reanimate like the neighbors back home.

  Considering these guys' resumes, that was probably the last thing that I wanted.

  There were two doors in this room, one to my left, one straight ahead. I headed for that one as Mengele burst through the wall behind me. His cord was slowing him up a bit; it dragged at him like an ectoplasmic leash made out of garden hose. I pushed through the door without opening it and found myself out in a main corridor.

  This part of the downstairs area looked familiar. If memory served, the stairs leading up were another sixty some yards on down, past where the curve of that corridor placed them beyond my line of sight.

  I took two long strides and then skidded to a stop as Mengele popped out ahead of me. Damn! His learning curve for astral maneuvering was considerably shorter than mine! Worse, he was anticipating my moves!

  "Anywhere you can go, I can follow," he taunted. "What is more—as my physical body grows stronger and younger, this intangible form seems to grow stronger and faster!"

  In the meantime, my psychic batteries were running down. There were no ectoplasmic jumper cables connecting me to any kind of an external power source. I was cut off from rendezvousing with Wendigo upstairs and, even if they found their way down here in time, there were no guarantees as to what any of them could see or do while we were in our present state.

  A swarm of butterflies came fluttering around the distant curve of the corridor as if r
esponding to my silent question.

  Mengele had his back to them but must have noticed something change in my face—this guy didn't miss a thing. He turned and took a step back as they flapped and spiraled toward us. Then he shrugged and turned back to me.

  "Insects?" he asked. "You storm my citadel with insects?" He shook his head. "Not that it would have made any real difference but I might have seen the logic in bees or wasps. Maybe spiders . . ."

  "Spiders aren't insects," I said.

  "I know spiders are not insects! They are arachnids! I am not stupid!" He swung his arm out to gesture behind him. "Butterflies . . . butterflies are stupid!"

  I wasn't sure what was going to happen next. Maybe nothing. But I took a step back anyway. "The Aztecs didn't think so."

  "What?"

  "The Aztecs. Native Americans. Inhabited Mexico from the north to the central region, flourished around the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries."

  "Extinct savages!"

  "Funny, I would have expected a little more professional courtesy. Even respect. The Aztecs developed a high culture and civilization while your Hohenstaufens were in political freefall and your Habsburgs were kicking and pulling each other's hair over the dynastic toy box. The Aztec high holy days made your Triumph of the Will look like Waiting for Godot."

  Mengele jumped: a butterfly had just fluttered by, grazing his ear.

  "Anyway, the Aztecs—who were self-styled experts on the subject of death, by the way—believed that the Danaus plexippus—that's the monarch butterflies for the taxonomy challenged"—another flew through his shoulder and he grabbed his upper arm as if stung—"were actually the souls of the dead. More specifically, dead children."

  The butterflies were starting to swarm him and he began to scream as they darted about, dipping in and out of his translucent form.

  "That's funny," I said, though there was nothing remotely funny to be found here, "they're butterflies. Even if they were bees or wasps or spiders—who aren't insects but arachnids, by the way—they couldn't hurt a noncorporeal being. Could they?"

  "They burn! Burn!" he shrieked, swatting at them with his hands. It was worse than ineffective: his hands passed through his orange-winged assailants with no resistance but his palms began to bubble with psychic blisters.