by Schow, Ryan
“Atticus Van Duyn has reached out to us with plans for expanded contracts in new fields. Less lethal fields. He reached out to me and said he would like to resume our business relationship at some point.”
“Atticus Van Duyn?” Shelton said, completely dumbfounded. “Really?” Why would Atticus resurface after all this time? After changing everything about himself? Wasn’t the idea to disappear?
“Is that so hard to believe?” the Director asked.
“Considering we’ve been paid to kill his daughter, it seems a bit…curious is all.”
“I agree,” the Director said. “He is a man of many pursuits, though. A man of many strange and unsettling pursuits.”
“This contract on Savannah is a fact he shall never discover, I trust,” Shelton said.
“That goes without saying,” the Director said with ice in his voice.
“Yes, but he isn’t dumb.”
“We will cross that bridge when and if we come to it. Back to Ms. O’Brien,” the Director said. “She is…was expendable. All of our slaves are expendable. Programmers like yourself, however, are critical to this operation. Not expendable.”
Shelton sat a little straighter. Snapped out of his trance. Did he just hear the man correctly? He wasn’t going to be killed after all! He was…critical to the operation.
Critical.
“Why let me do this, sir? If I’m critical to our operations here at Monarch?”
The Director considered the question for a moment, then: “I am curious about you, about your talents. If you can do this the way you say you can, if you prove to have the wherewithal to complete this task—to take care of Warwick and close out this contract with Savannah Van Duyn—then we will have a programmer who is proficient in both programming and field work. This will make us more efficient.”
“And if I fail?”
“That is not an option, Mr. Gotlieb,” he said in his sternest voice. “And the mere fact that you posed such a query now has me questioning my faith in you.”
Jesus, he thought, don’t rile the Director!
“There’s no need for second guessing me, sir,” he said quickly. In a more firm voice, he said, “I will give you the girl’s corpse.”
Enemy
1
Sensei Naygel taught me to not only know myself, but to know my enemy. See how he moves, how he strikes, how he responds to an attack. Know his strategy, know it before he engages so you know how to strike first and how to effectively counter.
It’s the middle of the night. I’ve woken up and now I can’t sleep because I’m thinking of my enemy.
I’m thinking of him tying me to my bed…thinking of him slicing open my chest and stuffing that plastic tubing down into my heart…thinking of him stealing Rebecca…leaving me alone…setting me on fire…burning me from the inside out.
I roll over in bed, my face searing hot, my heart kicking furiously at the walls of my chest, my hands making and unmaking angry, subconscious fists.
Lying in bed, I dream of all the ways to kill that diabolical butthole. I relive the fight, and the attempted murder. I have some self-defense skills, now. Could I take him this time?
I think I can.
But now I can’t sleep because my mind’s churning out all the murderous ways to finish him. There are so many satisfying conclusions.
God, why do I think like this? Why do I think so much of death? I think something’s wrong with me. I’m sure of it. It’s 4 A.M.
Now it’s 4:37 A.M. and I still can’t go back to sleep.
God, please…
It’s 5:12 A.M. and I know I must better understand my enemy. It’s the only logical step. The only true means of resolution.
2
Netty and her mother are still asleep when I go rooting through the house looking for weapons. With my stun gun and tazer still back in Palo Alto, I need something. I look for like five minutes at the steak knives, but when it comes down to it, I really don’t have the stomach to stab someone up close.
It takes Hulk-sized balls to do something like that.
In the cabinet drawer in the kitchen, next to the silverware drawer, beneath a short stack of junk mail is a keychain with a Mace canister.
Perfect.
But further back…omg…is a short revolver. My heart stalls.
No way.
It’s a snub nosed something or other with a cylindrical chamber for six bullets. I study it against the light, make sure bullets are in the cylinder. For a moment I get all clammy, but then a light sheen of sweat breaks on the back of my neck. There are bullets. Six of them.
Don’t think, I tell myself. Just go.
Black yoga pants, black hoodie, black running shoes. In the car, I head over to the apartment building I tracked Nurse Arabelle to, wait for someone to leave the building for work before heading in, then wait in the downstairs lobby for her.
Sitting on the cushioned bench in the lobby, I’m dressed like the kind of person they kick out of places like this.
The elevator doors chime and one after another, people come out in ones and twos and threes. The gun in my hand inside my hoodie is damp with the sweat of my grip. Half an hour later, elevator doors open revealing Arabelle and the girl. Standing fast, with purpose, I pull out the gun, move fast with it tucked at my side, head straight for them.
I aim the weapon at the girl and say, “Back upstairs or she takes two in the face.”
Arabelle looks startled; Alice looks mad. She starts to raise her hand like she’s wanting to burn me from the inside out again. I crack her hand with the butt of the gun, then thrust-kick her little body deep into the elevator. She hits the wall and falls. Picking herself up, her face takes on a greyish pallor, the skin translucent. Arabelle makes a move toward me; I grab her arm, spin her around and shove her into the elevator in front of me, then let the doors close.
Arabelle is seething.
Me, I turn and grab a handful of the girl’s hair. Not the back, but the side, where it really hurts. I press the nose of the gun into the crown of the girl’s head, create distance between me and Arabelle.
“If I even start to feel my insides cook, Arabelle, I will put a bullet in your pet.”
“Alice?” Arabelle says.
I feel the girl’s energy soften. She sort of whines.
Good.
“Now we’re going to walk very civilized to your apartment and I will not hurt either of you. I only want information.”
“This is not how friends are to be acting,” Arabelle says.
“If it were only you and I, there would be no need for the gun. It’s this little firecracker here that worries me.”
“Alice will behave.”
“I will not hurt you, Alice,” I say to her. “Will you behave?”
She nods her head only slightly against my fist of her hair. I let go. She stands there a minute in silence, then turns toward me and tilts her face up to meet my eyes. Veins stand out on her face and her eyes are nearly all black.
Holy shit, she’s like something out of a nightmare!
My body freezes, and my breath gets caught in my throat. I can’t even blink. She crosses the elevator, hits the button for the fifth floor, then takes Arabelle’s hand. The bluish-black veins on her otherwise translucent face fade and her eyes return to their normal shine. I force myself to swallow. It’s a miracle I don’t drop the gun and piss myself.
“What is this information you are wanting?” Arabelle says.
My brain is stalled out. It’s in neutral. Then suddenly it finds a gear and, thank God, I can think intelligible thoughts again. “I want the doctor who tried to kill me. And I want Rebecca back.”
“I will tell you the details of Dr. Heim, but I promise you will not like the things you will hear.”
I can’t take my eyes off Alice. Can’t stop thinking about how she looked so freaking …demonic. “And Rebecca?”
“I will tell you about her. Everything you are wanting to know, and some of the th
ings you are not wanting to know at all.”
The way she says it, there’s something different in her expression. An ancient anger. Does she despise the doctor as well? Perhaps I’m reading it wrong. The look on her face tells me it’s something more, something profound.
3
Her apartment is esthetically pleasing at first, but one long look leaves me feeling empty. Cold. There is an energy about the place that screams of desolation. Unlived in by anyone sane. And it smells like nothing. Not perfume or scented candles; not like flowers or fresh laundry or a clean dishwasher. Not a single scent. Literally nothing. There are no pictures on the walls, not a single family photo. Nothing is even remotely out of place.
“Nice digs,” I say. “If living sterile is your thing.”
Arabelle refuses to blink those gorgeous amethyst eyes. She just stares at me, as if she’s waiting for me instead of me waiting for her.
I take a seat on the teal blue, stiff-cushioned couch. Alice disappears into the other room. What a creepy little zombie girl.
“Speak,” I say.
“If you want water, glasses are in cabinet over dishwasher,” Arabelle says. This must be that Russian hospitality I read so much about, I think with a heavy dose of sarcasm. She remains standing. Behind her is a wall of windows and another couch.
I tell her I don’t want water.
Arabelle looks at me for what feels like forever, then turns and arranges herself on the other couch. In a heavily accented voice, she says, “Dr. Aribert Heim is man who try to kill you.”
“I know that much. Not the first name, but that doesn’t matter.”
“He is Nazi war criminal.”
Arabelle just spits out this tasteless morsel of information as if the psycho doctor doesn’t look a day under forty. I never knew her to be a liar, but there’s a first for everything, I suppose. I clench my fists. It just really agitates me that she’s choosing now to start with the lies.
“That’s a load of crap,” I say. “He’s too young to be a Nazi…anything.”
Arabelle draws a deep, consternated breath. She tilts her head to one side, popping her neck, and then does the same to the other. In the empty apartment it sounds like gunfire.
I’m looking at her with hard eyes thinking, is she done yet?
But she isn’t.
She turns her head all the way to one side then the other, and in a Slavic, foreboding voice, she says, “You are not going to believe what it is I am to tell you.”
“After seeing that little freak show’s face turn into Night of the Living Dead just a minute ago, my mind is now more open than you think.”
“I don’t know this night of dead,” she says.
I can’t help but shake my head. “Never mind, continue with your fabrication of the truth.”
“This is not fabrication.”
“Rest assured, Arabelle, you will tell me the truth. One way or another, I’m going to get it out of you.”
“This is truth. Dr. Heim had names like ‘Butcher of Mauthausen’ and ‘Dr. Death.’ He is brutal man. A torturous, ugly man. He killed more than three hundred people in prison camp in Mauthausen during second world war.”
I feel the rage swelling inside me. It’s like a dark flood, boiling to the surface. I hate being lied to. I hate being played. Jesus, do I really need to bring out the gun for this?!
“He isn’t old enough to have been alive that long ago. I mean, that’s like seventy years ago, Arabelle. SEVENTY!”
“It is true,” she says, unfazed.
“Stop with the lies!”
She bristles.
“They are not lies. Dr. Gerhard and Dr. Heim are scientists, genetic geniuses. They figure out how to beat age.”
My heart stops, and a sweep of vertigo nearly topples me.
“What?” I stammer.
“They are old men in new bodies. Engineered to be young the same as you are engineered to be beautiful. They use their own DNA to make young again.”
WTF? Nazi war criminals? Old men in young bodies? Really?
“Are you saying they are…?” My brain is refusing to function. It’s the mother of all brain farts I’m having. If you asked me what two plus two is, I’d shrug my shoulders and show you the stupidest look ever.
Arabelle just stares at me.
I’m like, “Arabelle, what exactly in Jesus’ name are you saying?”
“I’m saying they are old. Old.”
In a voice that barely even leaves my mouth, I hear myself ask, “Who are Dr. Gerhard and Dr. Heim?”
“I tell you already,” she says.
She’s looking at me like I’m slow. Like I showed up in the short yellow bus holding balloons and wet tongue washing the windows.
“No you didn’t tell me already,” I say, my body wavering out of my control, a lightheadedness overtaking me. I swallow my stomach, because the dots are suddenly connecting and, with a sudden, jolting clarity, I’m feeling a bit dizzy, and hot. “Tell me.”
“You hear of Angel of Death?” Arabelle said, her cloudy eyes clearing.
“Of course,” I say. “Josef Mengele.”
“Head doctor and mass murderer from prison camp in Auschwitz. Also genetics genius and foremost engineer of mind sciences.”
“That…that’s Dr. Gerhard?” I hear myself say, like I’m hoping what she is saying is wrong, a gross misinterpretation of…whatever. I’m thinking now about all the times I called him a Nazi, how I made the comparison of him to Josef Mengele.
I was right?
Holy crap, I was right!
“Yes,” she says, “Josef Mengele.”
I swallow so hard my throat actually hurts. My mouth has never felt this cottony and dry. “You know what he is,” I hear myself say in a horrible, raspy tone, “what he’s done. Yet you…continue…to work for him…to associate with him?”
I think I’m starting to hyperventilate. I know more about this monster than I want to know. I’ve read all about him and his revolting, inhuman acts. I did a report on him last semester for Christ’ sake.
“You may find hard to believe, but he saved me.”
I stand up, wobbly at first, then on strong legs. I pace the room. “What could that horrible piece of shit save anyone from, except a full life?” My tone is incredulous. My voice is disgust laced with a deep seated horror and breathless hatred. At this point, I can’t even look at Arabelle.
All this time…Gerhard was Mengele. The Angel of Death. Last century’s most monstrous piece of human filth. An atrocity. A real human stain if ever there was one.
This beast who orchestrated torturous experiments on innocents, who operated on people without anesthesia, who sent over four hundred thousand Jews and Jewish sympathizers to their deaths in the gas chambers in a year and a half at Auschwitz, he saved Arabelle?
“I was sex slave from Ukraine as child,” Arabelle confesses.
Her revelation knocks what’s left of the wind clean out of me. My wobbly legs return. I stagger backwards, then in a daze, turn into the closest chair and practically fall into it.
This amethyst eyed woman, this frozen block of Russian ice, I can’t see her how I used to see her before: as a heartless, miserable wretch. I blink twice fast. My eyes clear. If half the stories about sex trafficking are true, and Arabelle survived this nightmare, then I have no choice but to loathe every cruel word I ever heaped upon her.
I look right at her. See the real woman.
The world goes from black and white to full color. Now for certain, I know two plus two is four because I’m officially connecting the dots. I stand, cross the room and head straight for Arabelle. Her eyes widen, seeing me coming towards her, but she reads that thing in my eyes that is neither a threat nor uncertainty, and she lets me sit next to her, put my arms around her and give her the best hug I can manage.
She leans into me after a moment and I feel her body sink into mine. There is a perfect stillness in her and then I feel the sudden jolt of a sob. Pretty soon s
he’s crying and then I’m crying and before I know it, this morning is not heading in the direction I thought it would go.
When she pulls away and wipes her eyes, she looks at me and says, “Rebecca has been made to be pregnant by Heim. He and Wolfgang—Dr. Gerhard—they have developed program to make babies in three months, not nine.”
I am rocked to the core once more. Too stunned to speak. Or even breathe. OMG, I can’t take this anymore! My brain is saying leave. My brain is tap dancing on thumbtacks.
“Babies? As in more than one?”
“Yes.”
“In her?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“How far along is she?” I sound like I’m at the far end of a long tunnel. My ears are practically ringing.
“Almost ready to deliver. Biggest growth takes place in last month. Not as much in first two.”
I swallow hard, try not to imagine what Rebecca might be going through. “And what happens then?” I ask. “To Rebecca?”
“Host mothers either die or live.”
She didn’t answer my question. Is she being evasive or not understanding?
“They’ve done this before?” I ask. “To other girls.”
She nods her head, solemnly and I know why. Nazi Germany fell almost seven decades ago, but these two monsters are still experimenting, the same as they did before. Oh how the Nazi’s loved their perverse ventures!
Now Rebecca is one of their subjects, one of the enslaved.
“How many times?” I ask. As in how many times have they tried and failed before Rebecca.
“So many it is not worth to count,” she says, looking away.
“And the mother?”
In my head, I hear Margaret’s voice saying, “Never ask a question you don’t want the answer to.” I used to ask if she was doing blow when she was all crazed and sobbing. That was the response I got. But now, how can I not ask this question? Rebecca is my friend.
“Mother always dies,” Arabelle says, her voice cracking.
My lungs practically collapse. If I wasn’t already sitting down, I might’ve dropped to my knees.
The mother always dies.
