The God Project

by John Saul

  For the first few days, of course, Randy had wondered exactly why he was there and why his father hadn’t come to see him or at least called him. Then, as he got used to the Academy, he began to stop worrying about it.

  Now it was Thursday afternoon, and Randy and Peter had just finished gym. The afternoon stretched before them, and they were wandering in the woods that lay close by the main building of the Academy.

  “You wanna play King of the Mountain?” Peter suddenly asked.

  Randy looked around. As far as he could tell, the ground the Academy sat on was perfectly flat, except for a shallow pond they used for swimming. “What are we gonna use for a mountain?”

  “Come on,” Peter replied. He started through the woods, and in a few minutes they came to a path. A few hundred yards farther, there was a clearing in the woods. In the center of the clearing stood a massive granite outcropping, towering thirty feet above the ground.

  “What is it?” Randy breathed.

  “It’s a rock, dummy,” Peter said scornfully. “How do I know what it is?”

  “Can you climb it?”

  “Sure. I’ve climbed it lots of times. Me and another guy used to play on it all the time.”

  “Who?”

  “Jeff Grey.”

  Randy had never heard the name before. “Who’s he?”

  “He used to be here before you came.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “How should I know?” Peter replied, but something in his voice told Randy that he knew more than he was telling. Suddenly Eric’s words, half forgotten, came back to him.

  “Sometimes kids …just disappear. We think they die.”

  Was that what had happened to Jeff Grey? He was about to ask, but Peter was already starting the game. “You wanna play or not?” Peter called. “First one to the top tries to keep the other one from getting up!” Peter charged up the heap of rubble, then began scrambling up the rock, his hands and feet moving instinctively from ledge to ledge. Randy watched for a moment, then began climbing a few feet away from Peter.

  For the first ten feet the climb was easy. The rock rose out of the ground at an angle, and over the centuries its surface had been cracked and split by the freezing New England winters. Randy concentrated on moving upward as fast as he could, paying little attention to Peter.

  And then, as the rock grew steeper, he felt a hand close on his shoulder, tugging at him. He turned, and there was Peter, right next to him, bracing himself against a ledge, grinning.

  “Good-bye!” Peter sang out. He shoved hard, and Randy felt himself lose his balance as his left foot slipped out of place. He grasped at a branch of laurel that was growing out of the rock, then felt it break off in his hand. Suddenly, he was skidding downward, his arms and legs jarring against the stone, but never finding support. He hit the ground and lay on his back, wondering if he’d hurt himself. But it hadn’t been a bad fall, and he could feel no pain. Then, from above him, he heard the humiliating sound of Peter’s laughter.

  As Peter once more began working his way upward, Randy got to his feet and began looking for another place to climb. He circled the crag carefully, knowing there was now no chance of beating his friend to the top. Now he would have to fight his way onto the summit.

  He found a spot where the first part of the climb would be the most difficult, but where there seemed to be a fairly wide ledge, high up, on which he could brace himself while he tried to wrestle Peter down.

  He began climbing slowly, trying to memorize each step he made so that in the event he fell again he might be able to catch himself before he tumbled all the way down. He ignored the taunts that floated down to him as Peter proclaimed himself king of the mountain.

  Then he was on the ledge, and the flat top of the outcropping was level with his chest. Peter stood above him, grinning maliciously.

  “That’s as far as you get. Come any farther, and I’ll push you off.”

  Randy put his arms on the summit, but before he could scramble onto it, Peter had pushed him back. “Give up?” Peter demanded.

  “Why should I?” Randy shot back. “You cheated.”

  “I didn’t either,” Peter told him. “All I said was you had to get to the top. I didn’t say you couldn’t push the other guy back down.”

  Once more Randy tried to scramble over the ledge, and once more Peter stopped him, this time stepping on Randy’s fingers to make him let go of his handhold. Randy jerked his hand free, then sucked on his injured knuckles for a moment while he tried to decide what to do next. He glanced backward over his shoulder, and there, beyond the trees, he could see the forbidding mass of the Academy. He could almost feel eyes watching him and began to wonder if he was going to get in trouble when he got back.

  Then he looked down.

  Far below him, the rubble around the base of the crag looked threatening, and Randy realized that if he fell from here, the first part of the fall would be the easy part. If he didn’t stop himself in the first ten feet, there would be no way to keep himself from plunging the last twenty. And if that happened …

  He turned his attention to Peter once more.

  “Give up?” Peter asked again.

  “No!” Randy shouted. He made a move with his right hand, but pulled it away just as Peter’s foot came out to crush his fingers.

  He grabbed Peter by the ankle, using both hands even though he knew it was risky.

  Peter, surprised, stared at him for a moment, then tried to jerk his leg free.

  Randy held on.

  Peter tried to kick him with his free foot, but Randy twisted his leg, and Peter lost his balance, and had to use his other foot to keep from falling.

  He bent down and picked up a rock.

  “Let go of my leg.”

  “No.”

  “Let go, or I’ll bash your head in!”

  “No!”

  Randy looked up and suddenly realized Peter wasn’t kidding. The rock, large and heavy, was swinging downward.

  Instinctively, Randy yanked at Peter’s leg, bracing himself carefully on the lower ledge. As he watched, Peter’s eyes widened, and the rock fell from his hand.

  And then Peter teetered a moment, his balance gone, and began swaying forward. Both boys realized what was happening at the same moment.

  “Catch me!” Peter screamed.

  It was too late. Randy reached for his friend’s leg, but his fingers only brushed against the denim of Peter’s jeans. As Randy watched helplessly, Peter plunged headfirst into the pile of rubble below.

  Louise Bowen knelt next to Peter’s limp body and checked for a pulse. Satisfied, she carefully opened one of the little boy’s eyes and examined the dilation of the pupil. Next to her, Randy Corliss hovered nervously, tears streaming down his terrified face.

  “Is he dead?”

  “Of course not,” Louise assured him. “He’s unconscious, but he’s alive.”

  “I didn’t mean to do it,” Randy wailed. “Really, Miss Bowen, it wasn’t my fault. We were playing King of the—”

  “I know what happened.”

  The impatience in her voice made Randy subside into silence, and as he watched her examine Peter, he wondered what would happen to him now.

  When Billy Semple had jumped off the roof and broken his leg, everyone had been furious with him, even though it hadn’t been his fault. But what about this? He had deliberately tripped Peter, even if it was because Peter was going to hit him with a rock. What if Peter died? Would they take him to jail?

  As Randy watched, Louise Bowen carefully turned Peter over, and it was suddenly obvious what had happened.

  Peter must have landed on his head, pitching over onto his back. His hair was matted with blood, and the back of his skull was caved in. Fragments of bone were embedded in the bloody scalp.

  By rights, Louise Bowen knew, Peter Williams should be dead.

  Then, while Randy Corliss vomited into the bushes, Louise Bowen picked Peter up, began making her way toward th
e huge gothic building that housed the Academy.

  His stomach still churning with horror at what had happened to Peter, and his mind whirling with thoughts about what might still happen to him, Randy followed a few minutes later.

  Randy listened to the muffled chimes of the clock in the downstairs hall as it struck midnight. As its last note faded away, he listened for other sounds, but there were none. And yet the silence didn’t feel right to him. It wasn’t the kind of peaceful silence he was used to, but another kind; it made him feel like something was wrong.

  And, of course, something was: Peter Williams.

  At dinner Peter Williams’s place had been removed from the table. If the other boys had noticed—and Randy was sure they must have—none of them said anything. Instead, they quietly ate their dinners, then excused themselves, and disappeared upstairs.

  Bandy had waited until they were gone, then shyly approached Miss Bowen.

  “Is Peter going to be all right?” he’d asked.

  Miss Bowen had met his gaze, hesitated, then reached out to touch him on the cheek.

  “He’s gone,” she’d told him. “He’s gone, but you mustn’t worry about it. We know what happened, and nobody blames you. It was an accident, and nobody is responsible for accidents. Do you understand?”

  Randy had nodded his head uncertainly, then he, too, had retreated to the upper reaches of the building. But instead of joining the other boys, he had stayed in his room, trying to figure out what Miss Bowen had meant.

  And now, at midnight, he was still trying to figure it out.

  “He’s gone.” That was what Miss Bowen had said. She hadn’t said Peter was dead, just that he was gone.

  But that didn’t make any sense. Where had he gone and when? Randy had been in the building ever since the accident, and no ambulance had come for Peter. No cars had even left the Academy. So where had Peter gone?

  The silence and darkness suddenly closed in on Randy, and he got out of bed, put on his robe, and went to the door. He opened it and peered out into the hall. A few yards away, at the head of the main stairs, there was a desk where someone always sat, as if guarding the house.

  Tonight there was no one at the desk.

  Puzzled, Randy left his room and moved down the hall until he was standing at the top of the stairs. He paused and listened.

  All he could hear was the soft ticking of the clock.

  He descended the stairs slowly, stopping every few steps, sure that at any moment Miss Bowen would appear in the foyer and send him back to bed. But then he was in the foyer himself and still there was no sound.

  From where he stood, he could see that the living and dining rooms were both empty, so he turned and started toward the back of the house, where the offices were. He went past Miss Bowen’s office, then past several other closed doors. And then, as he was about to turn back, he heard the sound of muffled voices coming from behind the next door.

  He crept closer, and listened. Then, hesitantly, he reached out and turned the doorknob. He waited, sure that someone would call out to him, but no one did.

  Finally, he pushed the door open a crack and pressed his eye close so he could see into the room.

  It was all white, with a table in the center that was surrounded with what looked to Randy like medical equipment In fact, the room looked just like the operating rooms of hospitals that he’d seen on television. And around the table, five people were gathered.

  They were wearing white gowns and face masks, but Randy was able to recognize Miss Bowen from her eyes and the wisps of curly hair that stuck out from under her cap. He was sure that the man at the end of the table was Mr. Hamlin, who he knew was the director of the Academy.

  And then someone moved, and Randy saw who was on the operating table.

  It was Peter Williams. His head was locked into a metal frame. His hair had been shaved off and the back of his skull cut away.

  Randy froze, his eyes wide, his heart pounding.

  So Peter wasn’t gone after all, and he wasn’t dead. He was still here.

  But what were they doing to him? Were Mr. Hamlin and Miss Bowen doctors?

  They must be, or they wouldn’t be operating on Peter.

  And then he heard Miss Bowen speak.

  “What are you doing? You’ll kill him!”

  “I won’t kill him,” Randy heard Mr. Hamlin reply. “If he was going to die, he already would have.”

  Randy stood transfixed for a few more minutes, listening to the doctors as they worked, understanding only a few of their words, but knowing with a terrifying clarity that something was very wrong. At last, when he could stand it no longer without screaming, he pulled the door quietly shut, and crept back up to his room.

  George Hamlin, who was, indeed, a doctor as well as the director of the Academy, glanced around at the other members of his surgical team and wished their masks were transparent. He would have liked particularly to be able to read Louise Bowen’s expression right now. Of all his staff, he knew that only Bowen was likely to object to what he had done. The others, whatever roles they performed for the subjects at the Academy, were all doctors who shared not only his medical skills, but his devotion to research. But Bowen was different. She had never, as long as she had been part of Hamlin’s team, been able to develop the proper scientific objectivity. Indeed, had it not been for the importance of keeping the project a secret for the time being, he would have fired her long ago. For the moment, though, he would simply have to tolerate her. “All right,” he said softly. “I think that’s about it.”

  The operation had taken nearly three hours. During that time an anesthetist had stood by, ready to move in should Peter Williams have shown signs of regaining consciousness. But Peter had not; throughout his ordeal, he had remained in the coma that had come over him at the time of his fall.

  George Hamlin had begun working on Peter at ten o’clock, narrating his findings and his procedures as he went.

  “The scalp is healing; all bleeding has stopped. Clear signs of osteoregeneration.”

  He had carefully picked pieces of bone from Peter’s head, dropping them into a jar of saline solution that stood at his elbow. He worked quickly and expertly, and in moments the wound was cleaned.

  Beneath the hole in Peter’s skull a badly damaged brain had lain exposed.

  “Jesus,” someone whispered. “It’s a mess.”

  But Hamlin had ignored the interruption and begun cutting at the cortical material, removing the damaged tissue. That, too, had gone into a bottle of saline solution.

  “The damage doesn’t seem to have gone too deep,” Harry Garner, Hamlin’s senior assistant had commented, “Are there any signs of regeneration?”

  “Not yet.” Hamlin’s manner, as always, had been curt. He was making up his mind what to do next, and it was at that moment, as he had stared down into the gaping hole filled with living matter, that the part of him that was devoted to pure research took over.

  The scalpel flashed downward, slicing deep into the cerebral cortex, cutting inward and downward through the occipital lobe until the cerebellum was exposed. Behind him he heard a gasp and wasn’t surprised when Louise Bowen’s voice penetrated his concentration with the words that had so terrified Randy Corliss.

  “What are you doing? You’ll kill him.”

  “I won’t kill him,” Hamlin had replied coldly. “If he was going to die, he already would have.”

  And now, an hour later, the operation completed, Peter Williams lay in a coma, his face placid, his breathing slow and steady, his vital signs strong.

  But inside his head, part of his brain was gone. Hamlin had cut a core through the occipital lobe and the cerebellum, penetrating deep into the medulla oblongata.

  The wound was still open.

  “Do you want us to close for you?” Garner asked.

  “I don’t want it closed at all. Put him in the lab and watch him twenty-four hours a day.”

  “He’ll never survive twenty-
four hours,” someone said quietly.

  “We won’t know that until tomorrow, will we?” Hamlin replied. “I want this subject watched. If there’s any sign of regeneration in the brain—and I think you all know I mean unusual regeneration—I want to know about it immediately.”

  “And if he wakes up?” Louise Bowen asked.

  Hamlin faced her. His expression was impassive, but his eyes glinted coldly in the bright lights of the operating room. “If he wakes up,” he said, “I trust you’ll ask him how he feels. In fact,” he added, “it would be interesting to find out if he still feels anything at all.” And then George Hamlin was gone, leaving his associates to do whatever was necessary to facilitate the survival of Peter Williams.

  For Hamlin himself, Peter Williams as a person had never existed.

  He was simply one more subject, Number 0168. And the subject was apparently a failure. Perhaps he would have better results with the new one, Number 0263. What was his name?

  Hamlin thought for a moment, and then it came to him.

  Corliss. That was it: Randy Corliss.

  Starting tomorrow, he must begin watching the new subject more carefully.

  Chapter 13

  SALLY MONTGOMERY PAUSED just inside the entrance to the Speckled Hen, and wondered if she shouldn’t turn around and walk back out again. She glanced at herself in the enormous mirror that dominated the foyer of the restaurant and felt reassured. Nothing in her reflection betrayed her nervousness. To an observer she would look to be exactly what she was—a young professional woman. She was wearing a red suit with navy blue accents, deliberately chosen to draw attention to itself and away from the strain in her face, which she had tried to hide behind a layer of carefully applied makeup.

  “I’m Mrs. Montgomery,” she told the smiling hostess. “I’m meeting Mrs. Ransom.”

  “Of course,” the hostess replied. “If you’ll follow me?” With Sally trailing behind her, the woman threaded her way through the crowded restaurant to a small table tucked away in an alcove near the kitchen. Jan Ransom was sipping a spritzer and said nothing until the hostess had left the table.