By now he had completely given up on contemplating what the nameless shadowy thing was that was masquerading as the doctor and simply attempted to reach the safety of his three colleagues within the hidden silver Scarab. He then noticed through the rain’s haze as all three of his hobo disguised colleagues had hurriedly left the Scarab and ran towards him, just managing to hold him up before he fell yet again onto the filthy wet mud which surrounded seedy bar like a defensive moat. The concerned Merlyo and Zalewski both put his trembling arms around their separate stable shoulders whilst the confused Ness ran back to the Scarab and hastily opened up the front door, not wishing the muddy Cowles to dirty his lavishly decorated art deco rear.
By now the heavily intoxicated Cowles was almost totally incoherently rambling a confusing mixture of words whilst he was being carefully placed within the front seat of the Scarab. All three doors then hastily slammed shut behind them as they were all now sealed safely back within their private domain of secrecy. The confused Ness and Zalewski looked on as Merlyo then spoke as he shook Cowles’s shoulders, attempting to shake him out of his drunken stupor with limited success “Cowles! Cowles! Where is Dr Sweeney? Cowles!” The mumbling Cowles then spoke a few slurring words towards the on looking Ness as he attempted to focus upon the three faces that where now swirling quickly around him “Oh! My head aches! The owls are not what they seem… It played me like a violin… It could see me all the time… It’s always watching… Those god forsaken eyes! Oh god! It’s not human… not human at all!”
The obviously traumatised and tired Cowles then drifted uncontrollably into a deep and restful sleep that had been beckoning him for so very long. They were all oddly spooked by these last confusing remarks as an unnatural silence filled the silver Scarab’s interior with an uncomfortably tangible eeriness. The concerned Ness then sat back down in the shadows as the preoccupied Merlyo and Zalewski both tried to rouse the sleeping Cowles at the front of the Scarab. Cowles was however now safely within his own sanctuary of sleep and as Ness leaned back and into his comfortable seat and looked worryingly at the defeated Cowles, he pondered what the meanings where of his drunken ramblings.
After a moment whereby the two detectives had finally given up on attempting to wake the sleeping Cowles, Ness leaned back in the darkened Scarab and looked out of the glass sunroof above. The fleeting moon and stars had just broken through the rain clouds and he wished that his life had been simpler and not so intertwined with this uncomfortably disturbing Mad Butcher killer. Then, whilst his opium saturated mind drifted uncontrollably back into obscurity, he curiously saw was a distant owl flying across the face of the brilliantly lit full moon. As the two detectives continued a heated discussion about the unknown whereabouts of the elusive doctor, they did not notice that a massive shadowy figure was keenly watching them from the top of a nearby shanty home.
It curiously watched the detective’s heated debate whilst the shanty homes tin roof creaked and groaned under its newly found immense weight. Its round spectacles where illuminated by the sporadic light of the full moon overhead as its eyes remained transfixed upon the prey that the unsuspecting four within the Scarab now represented. It surveyed them all silently until the rain clouds sporadically parted to reveal the full glorious moon as it shone down upon that terrible thing that was once known as Dr Francis Sweeney.
The monstrous dark owl observed its earthbound familiar upon the tin roof as it basked within the natural moonlight whilst circling it from high above. The ancient doom bird effortlessly sailed willingly upon the desperate cries of the nameless masses whom inhabited Kingsbury Run and adored listening to the despondency of the hopelessness which saturated the entire area. The gliding screech owl ruffled its dark feathers in delight because only it knew the hideously maddening secret of why Dr Sweeney had become the unholy abomination that he was and why his soul was forever damned.
A cacophony of thunderous load explosions erupted in quick succession as the German shells once again rained down there fury upon the battered western fronts allied bunker. The inner earthy walls that lay deep within the earth’s crust shook tremendously and caused soil to bellow up into the surrounding environment, creating a toxic mixture within the bunkers already unbreathable air. The frantic American and British soldiers all rushed around and shouted for all too immediately vacate the targeted bunker before it collapsed under the relentless German bombardment.
A young and terrified Francis E Sweeney lay trapped under the some mangled corpses in the destroyed make shift infirmary and morgue that lay deep within the bunker, as a newly fresh mixture of warm blood and cold rain seeped into his open mouth. His intermittent mind came in and out of consciousness as he lay motionless under the deceased soldiers and confusingly tried to recall the troubling events that had led him to being trapped within his currently disturbing situation. Just as he thought that he had recalled these chaotically random thoughts and placed them within a discernible order, the trembling ground violently shook again which then created an unstoppable torrent of rushing muddy water that invaded the violated bunker from the newly formed gaping hole above.
A trapped Sweeney shook in terror as his companion corpses’ vacantly dead eyes unnaturally observed this primal fear before yet another Kaiser bomb landed nearby by, causing the macabre cocktail mix of bloody mud to quickly rise. The frightened Sweeney desperately looked at his surrounding trappings and tried to move against the heavy corpses above but could not move because there immense weight held him down, almost as if the dead did not wish him to leave his soon to be watery grave. He wondered if these where his last uncomfortably fleeting moments and if so, he had many harsh questions to ask his creator once he was delivered from this dreadfully tormented life. Death would be a sweet release from the pain of uncertainty and constant persecutory feelings of guilt that he had towards himself and he relished its blissful release which could not come soon enough.
He almost wanted to remain within his newly formed fleshy tomb of death and become part of the undead mount that now covered him, saddened at his short yet unremarkable life and depressed that he never found true love or visited the remarkable pyramids of Egypt. He then let his fear subside as he lay calmly under the watching moonlit corpses and resigned himself to his imminent fate as the muddy water quickly rose all around him. His calming mind then started to drift back to the beginnings of his troubles as flashes of gunfire fire erupted in the war torn sky overhead. The flashes illuminated the falling raindrops which felt blissfully calming upon his quivering skin and, as he let fate decide upon his ultimate outcome, he recalled the memories that had so alarmingly left him only moments ago.
A few weeks prior the young and clean shaven Sweeney splashed cold water upon his face as he looked at himself intently within the small mirror that hung loosely from the subterranean earthy wall. The precious mirror illuminated the entire subterranean room with both the light of a gas lantern, which dangled precariously from the overhead wooden beam, and an almost entirely used up candle which burned by the sink. The satisfied Sweeney then put back on his round spectacles before using a towel to clean away the shaving foam residue and then he then took a moment to admire his newly clean shaven appearance within the dim light. He had always disliked facial hair and found it an immense annoyance, especially with regard to eating because often food would get trapped within either a small moustache or an unpleasantly kept beard. He had long ago determined that ghastly facial hair made whomever wore it, no matter how well maintained it was, look older than they actually where and he always preferred to look younger and more hygienic.
He stood back and proudly admired his tight fitting, standard issue light green United States army medical unit uniform which belt was covered in an assortment of packed pouches for various medical supplies. His unsightly steel doughboy helmet and its accompanying gas mask sat by the wooden chair and although he had been told many times by his superiors to take them with him wherever he went, he hated the sight of
them and always conveniently left them within the infirmary. He did not need a constant reminder hanging around his neck that death was coming for him and this is what this pair of heavy equipment had unwitting come to represent. He then cleverly used the small mirror to examine every inch of his person within its cracked reflection before the earth walls vibrated with the familiar impacts of nearby bombs.
He tried to ignore the distant thunderous impact sounds which echoed all the way down within the allied bunker but could not help but feel fear resonating within his very being. He attempted to take his mind off this the distant sound of death by examining his perfected reflection but could not maintain this illusion of normality as a few more distant bombs exploded, making him ultimately wait a few more minutes in silent anxiety.
Just as he thought that the torment had ceased another explosive shell then shook the earth nearby him as a thin layer of newly released fine dirt then rained down upon his head and covered his round spectacles. He irritatingly ruffled his newly washed hair and cleaned his spectacles with his shirt, angered at the Germans rude interruption of his calming self-grooming session, before he then looked around the room and only now appreciated how fragile it was on closer inspection. The fragile soil walls seemed to continuously tremble for a significant amount of time after the shell had impacted, causing the singular wooden chair and accompanying washing bowl to both move in some sort of bizarrely mesmerising dance. They looked to be joyously dancing in unison at surviving yet another attempt by the Germans to smother them all within an earthy tomb of soil and he smiled to himself as he pondered his humanistic interpretation of their twin movements.
He had become so accustomed to these strangely comforting yet trivial distractions from the harsh reality that he was actually in, that he had suspected that he might even be losing his mind just like many of his friends had already done. This odd viewpoint was far more amusing than it was troubling because he knew that such traumatic environments as war would make any sane man go mad and so his brief forays into the realms of fantasy was an escape mechanism that fuelled his sanity and not the other way around. He knew that a healthy fantasy life was paramount to the mental stability of any individual and he had always been a keen user of his bursting imagination, even when he had first arrived here at the frontline. His imaginative wanderings where helped by his secret use of his beloved morphine which he had slowly come to depend on, choosing to stockpile the valuable drug within a cleverly hidden compartment within his gas masks tubing.
He knew such measures where obviously prohibited and that the drug was scarce, especially at the front line, but he had no alternative because he desired to mentally escape that horror that had consumed so many before him. The morphine helped him cope not only with sleep but also the sounds of war that raged all around him and upon the first few days of hearing such continual shelling barrages he was predictably frightened all the time, cowering under any bed or table upon hearing the first explosions that systematically rocked the bunker. He would often stay up all night and think with a clear certainty that the next shell would be on top of his own fragile earthy room but now he had got so used to their constant bombardment that he simply accepted that they were now a part of his miserably depressing existence.
He had already heard all the gruesome horror stories about how long people survived this close to the frontline but he still remained cautiously optimistic regardless because defeatism was not in his blood. He had thus decided to combat his anxiety by immersing himself within his complex medical studies and work and by doing this it would also help him take his mind off of the ever present constant threat of dying. Over the months he had helped perform many successful medical procedures within the field and his skilled work ethic, along with that of his admired mentors, where renowned throughout the besieged bunker. Many of his casual acquaintances had painfully endured this intolerably cruel life whereas others had simply gone mad or worse, where sent to charge the enemy on the muddy frontline which was little more than a death sentence.
This was one of the many reasons that the intelligent Sweeney had tried hard not to anger the officers within the regimented and confined bunker because if you got on their bad side you might well find yourself at the head of a new charge the next morning. The officers literally had the power of life and death at their mentally unstable fingertips and this worrying development had happened slowly over time because only the insane appeared to survive within the bunker’s restrictive environment. He was however indispensable as a medical professional and this shielded him somewhat from their wrath but others did not have such luck and he always found it shocking how a young man filled with the optimism of life could quickly be drained of this positive life force, leaving nothing but an empty husk with vacant eyes in its wake. He tried to keep no friends or attachments because of how quickly the turnover of new recruits was, offering an endless supply of fresh cannon fodder for the cruel officers to use in there fruitless charges upon the muddy battlefield above.
These pointless charges where always aimed at reclaiming a small sections of land that they had lost only a few days before and expressed the true madness of this bitterly cruel war. Even in the midst of such gruesomely macabre sights and the vast feelings of hopelessness that pervaded all, his behaviour still miraculously retained a tireless optimism which was on show for all to see. However there were still times when even he had to put on a false facade in order to mask his own internal torment because he was a man of unusual sexual desires and tastes, an exceedingly lonely man whom was desperately in need of some love and compassion. He required a man’s sensual loving touch above all else within this infuriatingly masculine and traumatically stressful environment but did not dare show his true feelings to any of the other men whom he desired due to the bunkers constrictively conservative atmosphere. The shame that he felt about having these sinful desires within such an environment where all consuming but he logically understood why they were there and why they were so unnaturally rampant with their continuous unspoken plea’s for sexual gratification.
He would always make a point to release these pent up frustrations if time allowed for it within the secrecy of the many hidden areas within the bunker and would primarily release them both upon wakening up and prior to going to sleep. This naturally eliminated any irritable distractive thoughts which would have otherwise besieged his preoccupied mind either whilst he slept or when he performed important medical procedures with his mentor. This skilfully planned routine had allowed him to put his mental efforts into other areas of social importance such as getting along well with everyone in his unit even though he mainly kept to himself.
There was a multitude of complex reasons why he kept these fleeting friendships at a safe distance but simply put, he did not wish to build up lasting relationships with others whom may die at any moment. Another reason is because he was irrationally and emotionally fragile when it came to attractive young man whom he would naturally desire to bond with but feared being discovered by others or even being rejected by the target object of his elicit affections. He always found that younger men, especially Scandinavian looking men with their blonde hair and blue eyes, would always have the startling effect upon him of effortlessly tearing down his well built up psychological defences and leaving himself open to there every whim.
If they required his help with a particular matter he could not resist and always agreed to help them but the flip side to this predicament was that he could not get close to the object of his affections because he would not allow himself to become immersed within a sordid fantasy that could lead to his sexuality being discovered. So he remained within a form of hellish purgatory of his own devising whereby he could look and fantasies about a particular man but never take it further to ultimately satisfy the slowly building up animalistic desires that consumed his waking thoughts. He immensely feared the rejection of any romantic advance almost more so than actually being discovered as a bisexual, further enhancing
his desire to remain hidden within the bunker’s anonymity and protecting his frowned upon sexual identity.
He adored women and men in equal measure but tended to find himself wanting the latter more so because he felt as though he could identify with a man more so than he could with than a women. Also there where very few woman at the front line and so he found himself immersed within sordid fantasies about males whom he actually knew and where tangible to him, exciting him more so with potential real life scenarios rather than farfetched female fantasies that where so fanciful in nature that they were almost laughable.
Others within his unit thought of him as rather an aloof and a strangely distant character whom was naturally socially awkward and not gifted in the basics of socially acceptable interaction. They even went as far as to give him the unbecoming nickname of “Spooky Sweeney”, primarily because he was always seen moving dead bodies from the make shift morgue and helping the ever popular Chaplin arrange prayer services for the newly deceased.
The deeply private Sweeney had become rather fond of the young blonde Chaplin because he had not only told him things about himself that he had told no others but also because they worked together on a regular basis. He had long ago suspected that his increasing feelings for the friendly Chaplin where because the religious man would always be willing to talk to others about troubling matters that concerned his fellow soldiers. Initially the calculating Sweeney had resisted these inappropriate emotional feelings that he had towards the preacher because he saw them as fruitless endeavours which could only end in misery but he finally relented and divulged intimate secrets about himself to his newly willing listener.
He was cunningly careful not to divulge his secret sexuality due to the familiar fear of rejection and discovered that he himself was a rich emotional avalanche of pent-up frustrations and unresolved childhood conflicts. Revealing such intimate secrets had a cathartic effect upon himself and subconsciously brought him ever closer to the attentive Chaplin, whom would occasionally blissfully touch his hand or hug him to offer some badly needed and comforting physical care. Sweeney lived for such intimate moments of physical interaction with the Chaplin, making his mere touch an event that he would look forward to the entire day and causing him to frequently fantasize about this interaction possibly leading to something more physical.
The Noir Evil Page 56
