“This the last of it?”
The geneticist turned to the voice. “Yeah,” he said. “Of these.”
Dr. Erdman nodded from the doorway and surveyed the room. Forty cylindrical incubators, which ran from the floor to the ceiling, were lined in five long rows. Almost half had already been removed, and only their wide bases remained. Three more DSTI workers had begun dismantling those, too. A fourth employee hosed down one of the emptied cylinders. Its surface reflected a light blue glow across the lab’s floor. There were two large steel bins on wheels lined with black plastic in the center of the room.
The rest of the pods were still occupied. The clones inside ranged from five weeks’ gestation to four years’, each floating serenely in the piss-colored liquid inside. In another room were six more that had been physically matured to twenty years in less than eighteen months. A different project altogether, really. Stanforth wanted to keep those, for now.
“So,” Mohlenbrock asked fairly cheerfully, considering the late hour and the day they’d had. “Any word yet on the whereabouts of our little monsters? How’s your boy Stanforth going to—”
“Focus on what’s here,” Erdman said. “They have the situation well covered on the outside. Admit it, you’ll be glad when Jacobson’s gone.”
“Jacobson was always a threat,” Mohlenbrock agreed.
“Then what’s the issue?”
“You really think they, we, can control that . . . Control it?”
Erdman shook his head disapprovingly at the word choice, but Mohlenbrock didn’t care. DSTI could come up with all the cutesy names they wanted to. Didn’t change the truth. Pakistan and Afghanistan and all those other “stans” was one thing. This was the United States they were talking about. It was abject lunacy. Erdman, however, wasn’t looking for an argument. “That’s the least of my worries,” he said.
“Oh?”
“Just get this cleaned up.” Erdman stepped from the room. “Stanforth should be here in an hour.”
Mohlenbrock watched him go, then looked back down at the experiment growing cold in his hand. Its eyes were closed, thank God. The fetus was just six weeks old, yet already seven inches long and almost nine ounces. Already a hundred billion neurons firing away. It had vocal cords, the genitals of a man. A thyroid gland already pumped male hormones into its premature brain: testosterone artificially laced with genetic rage and cruelty.
“Stanforth should be here in an hour.” And we want him to see we’ve all been good little soldiers, don’t we?
It gasped suddenly. Barely a tiny sucking sound, then another. New lungs fighting for their first taste of air. He felt the tiny shape shift against his wet palm.
What thoughts are even now forming in its primal brain? What terrible thoughts?
Mohlenbrock had forgotten already if it was another clone of Bundy or DeSalvo.
He reminded himself that it no longer mattered.
He reached for one of the steel bins.
• • •
An hour later, in another room down the same hall, three men argued about what to do next. The Soldier, Stanforth, was winning the argument. The Scientist held firm. The Suit, DSTI’s CEO, mostly kept quiet.
“We’ve used them successfully before,” Stanforth said.
“With consequences,” reminded Dr. Erdman.
“There are consequences in everything, gentlemen. Surely things have advanced in a year.”
“For better or worse?”
Stanforth shrugged. “It’s your project. Enlighten me.”
“Well,” the company CEO managed, shooting a glance to Erdman. “What do you think?”
Stanforth openly snickered at the man’s feebleness. He also turned to Erdman, whom he was actually starting to like. The guy wasn’t another pussy brainbox or goof like Jacobson had been. He seemed to have a broader worldview, which was important at the moment.
“They’re dangerous,” Erdman said.
“No shit.” The colonel fingered the tank’s acrylic panel. “That’s why we made them.”
“Don’t you . . . ,” the CEO, Rolich, began, hesitated, then began again. “Don’t you trust your man—Castillo, is it?—to do the job? You’re the one who told us to be patient. To let him do his job.”
Stanforth turned sharply. “His job, you dumb cunt, was to find six boys. Not twenty. Sure, he’ll probably uncover a couple before it’s over—guy knows how to do his fucking job—but Jacobson’s notes suggest there are clones spread all over God’s country. Clones you didn’t warn me about. Clones, I notice, you don’t deny are missing. And that bullshit is on you two. Not us. You knew Jacobson was bat-shit crazy, and you didn’t make him vanish. Worse, you looked the other way when he fucking raised one himself. And if you didn’t know, well, I suppose that’s even fucking worse. We were prepared to wipe up your shit once or twice. Not twenty fucking times.”
“Does Castillo really think he’ll find the others?” Erdman asked.
“He called an hour ago. He’s working on it. I trust him. More than I can say about you two fucks. So we’re clear, if I find out you’ve ever lied to me again, we’ll kill both of you.”
“Can we get more men?” Erdman asked, sidestepping the warning.
“You’re already using half a dozen of my best. Most are on cleanup, which is the most critical charge at the moment. And anyone better who I’d trust is deployed abroad and dug deep. Besides, any more men, and this thing could blow wide open. Small teams keep things quiet. And we know this soldier will keep his mouth shut.”
“Can it keep its jaws shut?” Erdman asked.
“Indulge me, gentlemen.” The colonel looked at Erdman. “But we may start with only the one. I’ll assume it’s almost ready to go.” He left the room quickly, cutting off any possible protestation.
“Yes, sir,” Dr. Erdman called after him.
Behind him, the body in the tank shifted.
• • •
They spent the rest of that whole night preparing for the proposed mission.
Dozens of shots. Tailored fluids and DNA, sophisticated anti-angiogenesis enzymes and chemo-preventive agents. Therapeutic exercise, joint mobilization, dry needling, cryotherapy, iontophoresis. Maps. Photos. Blood samples to taste and smell.
And, finally, clothing.
At first glance, in dark rooms, it looked entirely human.
WHAT A KILLER LOOKS LIKE
JUNE 05, SUNDAY—MARCHWOOD, PA
This is what a killer looks like, Jeff thought.
His glasses lay beside the sink. The mirror was half fogged with steam from the shower he was pretending to take as he squinted into the glass. Castillo was in the next room doing something CIA-ish with his gazillion laptops and the maps he’d taped up onto the wall.
They’d spent all day in this sketch motel, Golden Ranch Inn, somewhere north of Radnor. They weren’t out hunting bad guys like yesterday. Now they were sitting around for hours and hours, and it was boring times a thousand. Jeff watched TV and pretended to sleep while Castillo researched and waited. Waited for what? Murders, it turned out. Castillo had told him there were three hundred homicides a week in the United States. Three hundred people? Murdered? “Every week,” Castillo had replied. “Fifty a day. And while half are boyfriends and best friends and coworkers and gang morons, the other half are unsolved. Those are the ones I’m interested in.”
Jeff had done the math easily enough. That was seven thousand unexplained murders every year. Strangers killing other strangers for the thrill of making someone else die. And each one was now a little red dot for the map on the wall. Castillo had tapped his laptop and, gradually, right there, right on that map, was every reported murder in the last forty-eight hours. Every rape. Every missing person. Some red dots were bigger than others, like Polaris or Sirius shining brighter than the rest in a night sky dripping red with dozens of little crimson marks. “The more brutal the murder, the better,” Castillo had said. “I’ll find these guys.” He’d said it was only a
matter of time and of marking, starting to articulate some lines along the various highways, and looking for possible paths. The lines already ran in a hundred different directions.
“Just like connect the dots,” Jeff had noted quietly.
“Just like.” Castillo had turned and stared at him. “But with dead people.”
Castillo totally hated him. Jeff knew that for sure. Whenever the guy went out to make one of his secret phone calls or something, he’d always come back into the room all agitated. Like he was disappointed Jeff was still here. Even sent Jeff out on some fool’s errand to Subway in the middle of the damn night. Gave him a hundred-dollar bill for a couple of subs. Totally hoping he—the freak—would take the hint and split. Guess all those early threats about dragging him back to DSTI were obsolete. Guess Castillo didn’t want that shit on his conscience after all.
This is what a killer looks like.
But the freak hadn’t taken the bait. Instead, he’d returned from Subway and handed Castillo a list of all the places he knew his father—his fake father—had ever gone to. Conferences and cities and colleges and stuff. It was a pretty long list, but Castillo didn’t seem too impressed. What an asshole. Best to stay out of the guy’s way. Jeff stayed mostly in his bed pretending to be asleep, or watching TV with the sound down while Castillo worked on his laptop and messed with his map. After ten-plus hours of that, he’d asked Castillo if he could take a walk around outside a bit. Stretch his legs, get some fresh air. Something, anything, to get the hell out of the room.
Castillo had waved him off like a fly, no doubt hoping Jeff would leave for good.
Outside proved even more horrible than in the motel room, the nightmares from sleep sneaking into the waking world as nightmares and hallucinations directly from his father’s journals. I’m going crazy, Jeff thought. Or always have been. If the hallucinations weren’t enough, there were the very real dangers lurking outside. Some drunk or stoned guy had gotten all up in his face as he’d wandered back to the motel room. Crude and hostile, and no less evil, probably, than the guys Castillo was looking for. Or me . . .
It was best, safest, to be here, hiding in the bathroom. Invisible. It was simple to do now. He’d become the invisible boy. On the very first day they’d left Haddonfield, Castillo’d run into an Old Navy store and returned in ten minutes with two full bags: two pairs of jeans, a bunch of T-shirts, and a hooded sweatshirt, everything either blue or dark gray, in the most generic styles the store carried. If Jeff was holding the clothing he’d bought in his hands, he still couldn’t have described it. Then, in the motel bathroom, Castillo had cut and dyed Jeff’s hair. It was now short and brown. Castillo told him he could only wear his glasses when they were safely in their room. How am I supposed to spot those guys without my glasses? Not a single person on earth would notice, let alone recognize, Jeff one bit if they saw him. He’d ceased to exist. Exactly like Castillo wanted. Like his own father had wanted. His fake father.
He’d been reading a new fantasy novel the night his fake father had come in and told him that (a) I’m not your real father and (b) you’re actually the clone of a famous murderer and (c) DSTI will want to kill you and (d) I do love you but (e) I’m leaving, good luck. It had been a lot to take in at once. When his fake father drove away, Jeff had chased after the car as it vanished down the street. One more thing: He still missed his fake father.
Jeff tried to picture himself as he’d been just a day ago. Happy. Normal. Then he imagined himself at eighteen, the same age as Jeffrey/5. The other boy his fake dad had built in a lab. The one Castillo was chasing after. The one who’d probably helped kill all those people at DSTI. Eighteen years old. A couple years from now. Maybe that Jeff had grown some sideburns or a little soul patch. Probably a couple inches taller.
He wondered how old all the others were. The other Jeffs. How many were there in the world? According to the notes his father had handed him that first night, he was really Jeff/82. Another seventy copies had died, by both flaw and design, prior to his own birth. Seventy! So he was one of, then, maybe four, five, ten other Jeffrey Dahmer clones that’d survived.
He thought of a joke he’d heard: What’s worse than a barrel full of dead babies?
He could only remember the last, maybe, five years of his life. The rest was kinda hazy. His father—his fake father—had told him stories about things they’d done and filled in memories as best as he’d been able. But his fake father had clearly lied a lot. Hadn’t he? It was hard to know about anything for sure. His fake father had said there’d been some kind of car accident and that was why he couldn’t remember so well. Why he had no mother. His fake father had shown him pictures of an accident once, had said that’s why his head hurt sometimes, why he saw things that weren’t there.
The punch line: A live one at the bottom, trying to eat its way out. He thought, That’s me.
Sometimes he even saw people who weren’t really there. Familiar faces in a crowd or imprinted in the scenery. There was the Asian guy. A couple different black guys. The big blond kid. There one second, gone the next. Like ghosts or some kinda déjà vu. All those years, he’d thought it had been people he’d known once. Maybe before “The Accident.” An event as fictitious as all the rest. But now he knew better. He’d seen their pictures in his folder. The same faces he’d glimpsed so many times before. The second part of the déjà vu. Ghosts caught on film. Inherited memories of some kind.
His victims.
This is what a killer looks like.
He next tried to imagine himself at twenty-five. As Jeffrey Dahmer #1. The Original. The one in the files his fake father had given him. The one who murdered seventeen people. Jeff didn’t know much about him. Had never even heard the name before three days ago. The folder his father had given him with all the details had been taken when the DSTI guys busted into his house. He knew only what he’d managed to glean that first night. That Dahmer’d been born in 1960 and lived in Ohio and that his dad was a chemist. He knew that Dahmer committed his first murder at eighteen. That he was just getting started. That he got found guilty on fifteen counts of murder and was sentenced to a separate life term for each and every one. Almost a thousand years in prison. Jeff couldn’t even imagine one. Didn’t matter. Two years into his sentence, another prisoner beat Dahmer to death with a broom handle. The guy claimed that “God told him to.”
And that’s the face he was looking for in the motel mirror: the face smashed apart with a broom handle because that’s what God wanted.
It wasn’t too hard to imagine at all. He’d seen the pictures in his file. Brown hair dye wasn’t enough. It was still the same face underneath. Add a couple of pounds maybe. Not too many.
The very last face seventeen people saw right before they were murdered.
Yeah, no doubt about it. It was the same face in the mirror.
His face.
This is what a killer looks like. . . .
Jeff turned on the hot water faucet all the way. It took another minute to steam the mirror completely. He imagined the outlines of faces forming in the mirror’s emerging coating of vapor. But his own had vanished completely.
Thank God, he thought.
• • •
Castillo turned to eye Jeff as he came out of the bathroom.
“What’s wrong?” the boy asked.
Castillo shook his head, ignored him, peered out the door’s peephole again.
“What’s goin’ on?”
“Nothing,” Castillo said, watching. “Couple of drunk assholes.”
“Those are the guys who—”
“Yeah, your friends from earlier. You should have stayed the fuck inside.”
“Sorry. You said—”
“No, that’s totally on me.”
“Can’t we just ignore them?”
“No. Eventually the police are gonna show up. Whole goddamn motel is empty. Eventually, cops’ll maybe come knocking on our door asking what I heard. Don’t want to have to explain my c
ar or you, or even me, to them or anyone else.” Decent places brought too many cameras and registrations. But the cash dives, you still stuck out like a sore thumb. Should have stuck to motels in the middle. Damn! “Another Sunday night in Mayberry.”
Another empty beer bottle exploded off the motel parking lot.
“Get dressed,” he said and opened the door.
Four doors away. One car, an old dirty Omni, and one red Dodge pickup were parked unevenly in front of an opened room door. Loud music and bright light came out of the room. Air was streaked with the whiff of pot. Two girls and three guys leaned against the door, sat on the hoods and tailgate. Late twenty-somethings. Hard to tell. Guys all had half-assed beards, short hair. Two in their wifebeaters, showing off cheap tats and emerging beer guts. Couple of locals. One of the guys was “playfully” shoving one of the girls with his drunk hand in what Castillo assumed they both took as some kind of hilljack foreplay. The girl was half laughing, half shying away.
“What up, motherfucker?!” one of them yelled as soon as Castillo stepped outside. The posse cackled.
“Yo,” Castillo said. “You guys mind taking the party inside some?”
“What the fuck for?” He had the attention of all of them now. There had been a fourth man in the room, and he stepped outside. Castillo assessed each. Two were pretty stoned.
“Just getting a little rowdy is all, man,” Castillo lifted a hand to the newest arrival. “Someone’s eventually gonna call the cops, you know.”
“Fuck the cops!” More laughter. “Fuck you, too, man.”
“Shit, bro. You callin’ the fuckin’ Five-Oh on us? Thought you was cool.”
“No, man,” Castillo said as he held up a peaceful hand. “Ain’t calling the cops. But this place got a manager, couple other people trying to sleep. Someone else might. Letting you know it’s getting kinda loud is all.”
Cain's Blood: A Novel Page 10
