Basilisk

by Graham Masterton

  ‘Good,’ said Denver. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Real scary, this basilisk,’ said Patti.

  ‘Sure is. I’ve really got my fingers crossed that I never get to meet it.’

  ‘All the same, can you imagine it? What a story.’

  Denver said, ‘Pops – I just came to pick up my MP3, that’s all. I left it in the kitchen. And I was wondering if you could advance me my next week’s allowance?’

  ‘Sure. Just hold on a minute.’

  Denver looked at Patti as if he were amazed at Nathan’s instant agreement. Like, normally, I have to pester him into the ground.

  ‘So – what kind of music do you like?’ asked Patti, as Nathan went back into the house.

  ‘Deathgrind, mostly. Circle of Dead Children, Cattle Decapitation, Brujeria.’

  ‘Hey!’ said Patti. ‘That’s so extraordinary. Me too. I’ll tell you my favorite band, Soilent Green. I love that southern sludge sound.’

  The two of them stood together on the porch nodding at each other like dipping ducks, as they mentally agreed on the tracks that really got them going. They didn’t have to say anything: they could hear the music in their heads.

  Nathan came out and handed Denver his MP3 and fifty dollars. ‘Don’t spend it on anything sensible, OK? And I’ll see you back here round about six thirty.’

  He and Patti watched Denver lope back down the driveway, his Nikes slapping on the asphalt.

  ‘Great kid,’ said Patti. ‘I can tell he’s your son.’

  Nathan said nothing. Denver reminded him too much of Grace. But he laid his hand on Patti’s skinny little shoulder and said, ‘Thanks. I’ll catch up with you later. And – please – do whatever you can to get that appeal for Doctor Zauber online, won’t you?’

  Patti said, ‘I lost my mother, you know, three years ago next Tuesday, breast cancer. She was in a coma at the end, so I know how you feel. You talk to them and hold their hand, but you know they’re gone and they’re never coming back.’

  Nathan said, ‘Grace is coming back, I swear to God. Grace is coming back because I’m not going to rest until I know where she’s been, and what she’s seen, and what that damned thing did to her.’

  FIFTEEN

  The Voice from the Wall

  Once Patti had gone, he drove back down to the Hahnemann. The sky was squid-ink black and it was raining hard. He parked, and went up in the elevator to ITU. His hair was wet and spiky and he was shuddering with cold, emotionally as well as physically. Up until now, he hadn’t allowed himself to think it, but supposing Grace never recovered consciousness? He could imagine Doctor Ishikawa asking him if he wanted to switch off her life support, so that she could die. But at the same time, he couldn’t imagine life without her. Nate-and-Grace, that was what they were, that was what their friends and their family called them, and that it was they had expected to be for ever, until death did them part.

  Grace was lying on her bed, as cold and as white as she had been before, her skin almost luminescent. The Egyptian-looking nurse was checking her blood pressure.

  ‘She’s fine,’ she said, touching Nathan on the shoulder with a long-fingered hand that was strangely dry, like dark-brown finely creased leather.

  ‘I guess I’ll sit with her for a while. Read to her.’

  ‘You can bring in music, too, if you think that will help.’

  Music? He didn’t really want to sit here listening to all of those songs they had danced to, on drunken summer nights. Van Morrison, Donna Summer, Coldplay. John Denver, too. Grace had always loved John Denver, ‘Sunshine on my Shoulders’, but neither of them had ever had the nerve to tell Denver where his name came from.

  He read her some more from The Process. ‘In the Sahara, there are plants with spined tendrils like elaborate steel traps and humanoid plants like silently screaming witches staked into the ground. I wouldn’t trust the plants out here with as little as one drop of water.’

  The day passed by, with the sun rotating through the room, as it always does on hospital visits. Different shifts of nurses came and went. Grace continued to sleep, with her eyeballs flicking from side to side beneath her eyelids. Nathan closed the book and sat for a long while staring at her, at her pale white hand, until he began to fall asleep too.

  I will allow you to find me, if you really want to, said a voice, and it was frighteningly close to his ear.

  He opened his eyes. There was nobody else in the room, apart from Grace, and she hadn’t moved, and certainly hadn’t spoken.

  I just dreamed that, he thought. I really need to get myself a decent night’s sleep.

  But you have a far more pressing priority, Nathan. Something much more urgent than catching some sleep.

  He stood up. In the white plaster wall next to the door, about four feet from the floor, half of a human face had appeared, with only one visible eye, which was closed.

  ‘I’m dreaming all this,’ he announced, standing up and walking across the room. The white face didn’t flinch, but turned itself away, as if he had offended it. Its eyes remained closed.

  ‘What is all of this?’ he demanded.

  Transvection, the face replied. Surprised you never heard of it, your father being such a talented medium.

  ‘My father was never a medium. He could predict things, that’s all. Horse races, weather, nothing important.’

  Who says that fortune-telling always has to be real? Fortune-telling is an inspired guess, based on all the known facts. But your father had the gift. That was why he was always so good at card games.

  ‘I’m asleep. I’m sitting in the hospital, right next to Grace’s bed. But where are you?’

  I could tell you, Nathan. But that would depend.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. Depend on what?’

  It would depend on why you wanted to find me. I need you to work with me. I need your knowledge, and your skill.

  ‘And I need you to tell me how to get my wife out of this coma.’

  There is a way. But I’m not sure that I want to tell you what it is. In fact, I have every conceivable reason not to.

  ‘If you don’t tell me, then believe me I’m going to hunt you down and find you and force you to tell me what it is, even if I have to cut your balls off.’

  Well, I was afraid that was how you might feel. But if you agreed to work with me, and we produced the creatures that you and I were always destined to produce . . . then I might reconsider, and tell you how to bring her back.

  ‘Where are you, you bastard?’

  Right now, the way you’re feeling, that’s for me to know and you to find out.

  ‘Where are you?’

  Not here, Nathan. Not in reality. And not in your nightmare, either.

  Nathan heard a wheezing, and a shuffling sound, close behind him. He turned around, and there was a huge black creature, almost filling the room. A massive basilisk, with branch-like horns, and a beaky face, with slitted eyes, and a huge distended body covered in shining blue-black scales, like hundreds of mussel-shells all joined together into some hideous, clattering cloak.

  He knew that it wasn’t real. He knew that he was dreaming it. But he could hear its breathing and he could smell its breath, like overheated metal and burned garlic.

  This wasn’t the hunched, deformed basilisk that he and Grace had encountered in the corridors of the Murdstone Rest Home. It wasn’t covered in rotten sacking and rags, to protect it from the world around it. This was a new, fully developed basilisk, with shining claws and elaborate antlers, and eyes that shone as intensely as arc lamps.

  See what we could do, between us. See the beasts that we could create.

  The creature turned its head toward him, so that the lizard-like folds in its neck crinkled. Nathan immediately lowered his head and shielded his face with both hands, but even so the bright light lanced between his fingers and he had to shut his eyes tight, too.

  ‘I wouldn’t even think of working with you, you bastard, not unless you told me how t
o save my wife.’

  So – if I were to promise to bring your wife back to you, you would consider it? I really need you, Professor. I need your scientific knowledge. I need your genius.

  The light between Nathan’s fingers gradually died. Very cautiously, he lowered his hands and looked up. The basilisk was still there, but now it was leaning over Grace’s bed, as dark as a thundercloud. There was no light shining from its eyes, but it was staring down at her with a look of reptilian curiosity, as if it couldn’t decide what kind of creature she was, or if she were even alive. Was she prey, or was she carrion? Was she to be killed, or was she dead already?

  It raised one curved black claw, and reached toward her face. Nathan immediately jumped up and threw himself toward it, shouting out, ‘No! Don’t touch her!’

  Somebody grabbed him, and pulled him sideways. He opened his eyes and it was one of the nurses, a stocky black girl with cornrow hair.

  ‘Mr Underhill?’ she said. ‘Mr Underhill? What are you doing, Mr Underhill?’

  Nathan twisted around. Grace was still lying on the bed, unharmed, and the basilisk had vanished.

  ‘I was—’ he began. The room suddenly seemed to tilt, and he gripped the end of the bed to steady himself. ‘I must have been dreaming, I guess. Sorry. I thought I saw something that wasn’t really there.’

  ‘You need to take good care of yourself, Mr Underhill. I know that you’re worried about your wife, but you won’t be any good to her unless you sleep properly and eat properly.’

  ‘I know. You’re right.’

  ‘There’s a room on this floor where you can sleep if you want to. All you have to do is ask. If there’s any change in your wife’s condition, of course we will let you know right away.’

  Nathan nodded, and whispered, ‘Thanks.’

  He maneuvered his chair closer to Grace’s bed and sat down again. He was shaking, and motion-sick, as if he had just stepped off a roller-coaster ride. He knew that the appearance of the basilisk had only been an illusion, but he could still smell it, hot metal and garlic. He could almost taste it.

  So Doctor Zauber still wanted Nathan to work with him. See what we could do together! See what beasts we could create! And he had definitely implied that he knew how to rouse Grace out of her coma. But at what price? How could Nathan possibly justify bringing Grace back to life, if it was going to cost the lives of countless elderly people? And even if he decided to do it, what would Grace say? Grace was a healer. How would she be able to live with herself, once she realized the commitment that he had made to Doctor Zauber, on her behalf? He could see her now, like Lady Macbeth, holding up hands that were smothered in blood. And there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

  He stayed with Grace until six. He didn’t read to her; but he talked to her, trying to remember all the good times they had spent together, ever since they had first met. Grace had always been funny, always ready to try anything and everything. As an MD, she had seen how short life could be, and how painful, and she had always been determined to live her life to the limit, no matter what. For no reason at all, he thought of the time that she had cajoled him into taking her to Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub, in Clearfield, to try to eat Ye Olde 96er, America’s largest hamburger – six pounds of beef in a specially baked bun, with pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, onions and mayo, dripping with cheese. They had made such a mess and laughed so much that Nathan had almost choked.

  He knew that there was only one way out of this. He would have to hunt down Doctor Zauber and force him to bring Grace back to consciousness, no matter what it took.

  Grace murmured, and stirred, and her right hand suddenly jerked. Nathan stood up and said, ‘Grace? Grace, sweetheart? Can you hear me?’

  But after that she stayed still and silent, although her eyes were still flickering wildly from side to side under her eyelids, as she walked through some surrealistic world that Nathan couldn’t even begin to imagine.

  Eventually, he kissed her cheek and said, ‘Grace . . . I’ll come back tomorrow, OK? Right now Denver needs feeding and I could really use some heavy-duty sleep.’

  He was about to leave the room when he noticed that there was still a slight oval blemish on the wall where the face had appeared in his nightmare. He approached it, and examined it closely. It was a crater in the plaster where the door handle had constantly been striking the wall, every time somebody opened it. Nothing more than that. He reached out to touch it, but as he did so, it flicked open like an eyelid, with white eyelashes, and a chalky white eyeball inside it.

  Nathan jerked back. The eye stared at him, unblinking.

  I will be watching you, Professor. I always know where you are, and what you’re doing.

  ‘Listen – I’ll give you anything you want, if you can make Grace better. But I can’t kill people.’

  You don’t think so? The first two or three are always the hardest, but I can assure you that it very quickly becomes much easier. Sometimes, yes, they beg to be spared. But other times, when they are very old, and tired, and they are in constant pain, they look almost happy to be taken. Their pathetic little souvenirs! Their photographs, and their golf trophies! But I can tell you one thing with certainty, Professor. When we die, nobody really cares. Nobody misses us. The carousel of life keeps on going around and around, and up and down, with everybody screaming and laughing. The same thing will happen to you, and to me, so why are you so worried?

  ‘Why am I worried? Are you kidding me? I’m not a serial killer, that’s why. Everybody deserves to live as long as they possibly can, and it’s not up to me or you or anybody else to decide when it’s time for them to die.’

  ‘Mr Underhill?’ said a voice. Nathan turned. The nurse was waiting for him, in the open doorway. She must have heard him talking to the wall and thought that he had really lost it.

  ‘I’m, ah – yes. I was just saying goodnight to Grace.’

  He glanced back quickly behind the door, but the eyelike protuberance in the wallpaper had disappeared, and now there was nothing but the crater in the plaster, where the door handle had constantly been hitting it.

  ‘You will take my advice, won’t you, Mr Underhill? You will eat? You will sleep?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nathan. And go hunting for Doctor Zauber.

  Three days passed, and Nathan went down to the Hahnemann every morning at eight a.m., and sometimes earlier, and sat with Grace until five thirty in the afternoon. He came to the last page of The Process.

  ‘The windows are streaming with gold. I look out to see we are spinning through the Sahara faster than the speed of light, escaping the clutch of the great hairy magnet of the Sun. From behind my back, this little old gink with one eye is asking me:

  ‘“Why were you in such a hurry to get there, when the desert gets us all in the end?”’

  He closed the book. It must have taken him nine hours to read it from cover to cover but Grace hadn’t shown the slightest reaction. Not the hint of a smile when it was humorous and wry, not a single tear when it was sad. He looked up: Patti was standing in the doorway, watching him. She was wearing a fluffy white sweater and very tight blue jeans.

  ‘Hi, Professor.’

  ‘Come on in,’ he told her, and stood up to bring a chair across from the corner of the room. ‘What brings you here?’

  ‘Did you get the link I sent you? “Paleontology Prof In Rest Home Rescue Drama”?’

  ‘Yes, thanks, I did. I meant to get back to you, I’m sorry. That was great, that appeal to anybody who might have seen Doctor Zauber.’

  ‘That’s OK.’ Patti nodded toward Grace. ‘You have more important things to worry about.’

  ‘Did you get any response?’

  ‘No, not a single one. Well, two or three, but they were obviously hoaxes. Somebody said they saw Doctor Zauber eating a cheesesteak in Geno’s, and somebody else saw him selling fake designer purses on Chestnut Street. But look what just came up.’

  She handed him a computer printout. It was a news
item from the international media site EINnews.com. The headline read, ‘Sixteen Pensioners Die In Polish Bus Blaze’. It was accompanied by a color photograph of a burned-out bus, which had been reduced to a blackened skeleton on four charred wheels.

  ‘Read it,’ Patti urged him.

  Nathan laid aside his book. According to the printout, sixteen elderly people from a residential home in Skawina had been heading to Oświȩcim for a social evening and dance with the residents of another residential home. They had failed to arrive, and when police eventually went to look for them, they were found in their burned-out bus in a forest to the north of highway forty-four.

  Nobody had yet been able to explain why they had turned off the main road into the woods, or how the bus had caught fire, or why none of the elderly people had made any attempt to escape.

  Patti reached over and tapped the last paragraph with her pink sparkly fingernail. ‘This is the clincher, right here.’

  Nathan read it. ‘Forensic investigators in Kraków have reported that although the bodies of the sixteen bus passengers were badly burned, none of them died as a result of smoke inhalation, which has led detectives to conclude that they were all dead before the bus was set alight.

  ‘Police commissioner Grzegorz Schetnya said at a news conference yesterday that he believed that the elderly people could have been the victims of one or more assailants, who subsequently burned the bus in an attempt to conceal any evidence of their crime.

  ‘He could not understand why anybody should have wanted to kill so many elderly people, none of whom were carrying money or any items of value. “I can only theorize that it was an act of wanton butchery,” he said. “A thrill killing, for its own sake.”’

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Patti. ‘I mean – that sounds exactly like the Murdstone Rest Home fire to me. OK – it was a bus, and not a building. But all of those old folks were dead before they were burned, just like the old folks here.’

  ‘You could be right,’ said Nathan. He read the printout again. Then he said, ‘Kraków . . . that’s where the original basilisk was supposed to have come from. So that kind of fits. If there were any basilisk remains to be found . . . any bones or skin that could have yielded DNA . . . Kraków is the first place I would have started looking for them, before I looked anyplace else.’