by Jeff Rovin
Megan had moved to a waiting-room bench situated halfway between the nurse’s station and the elevators. Though she was flipping through the Ladies’ Home Journal, her eyes kept shifting between Dr. Harrod and the clock. It had been nearly a half-hour since her father had left, yet they were still paging Cain. She hoped her lover hadn’t done something rash.
The minutes dragged as Megan waited for her caretaker to become involved with someone or to leave the desk; for nearly a half-hour now she’d simply signed forms, talked on the phone—and looked frequently at Megan.
Suddenly, a nurse came jogging up to the desk. “Dr. Harrod, we need you in the crash room.”
The doctor looked from the nurse to Megan. “Coming,” she said after a moment’s hesitation, then disappeared down the hall.
Sighing, Megan flipped the magazine aside and scooted toward the bank of elevators. She took the first one going anywhere, just to get off the main floor; as it happened, the carriage was headed for the basement.
Her companion, old Vinnie Papa, the janitor, tipped his hat and headed to the left, toward the boiler room. The corridor before her was deserted, and Megan proceeded cautiously.
West was shining his penlight in Dean Halsey’s eyes when he heard the elevator door slide open.
Megan called out. “Dan? Are you down here?”
West swore. “Damn that bitch!”
Cain became alert. “Meg?”
Dean Halsey groaned. His voice was not articulate, but there was enough control and variation in the tones to bring a broad smile to West’s lips.
“Daniel, do you hear that? He’s actually trying to speak to his daughter!”
“Dan? Daddy?”
Cain filled with dread. “Herbert, what if he thinks we’re going to hurt her?”
“Pardon?”
While West looked on, puzzled, Halsey’s eyes rolled back into his head, and, with a roar, he popped his straps. West fell back from the table, but Cain was not so lucky. The reanimated corpse locked its powerful fingers around his throat and began lifting him from the floor. Cain gurgled helplessly as the man’s manicured nails dug into his flesh.
“Don’t worry,” West shouted hopefully. “He only has three fingers on that one!”
“Herbert!” Megan yelled. “Is that you? Is Dan all right?”
West’s face screwed unpleasantly as he finally grasped Cain’s warning. “Miss Halsey, just shut up and stay away!” he shouted as he jumped to his feet. Running to help his colleague, West was snared by Halsey’s free hand; the corpse literally dragged him across the table by his neck, bringing both men to their knees on either side of him. He sat up, oblivious to West flailing at his arm and Cain trying desperately to pry his remaining fingers loose.
“I’ve had enough orders for one day!” Megan protested as she stepped into the doorway. The young woman’s expression shaded from defiance to rage, and she ran in. “No, Daddy! What are you doing!?”
Dean Halsey looked over, his mouth falling open dumbly. Hastily releasing the students, he rolled from the table and loped awkwardly to a corner of the room, where he crawled beneath a large sink and crouched, trembling, his back to the room.
Megan walked slowly toward him while Cain, rubbing his throat, ran to intercept her. West quietly retrieved his tape recorder.
“Ten fifty-two,” he whispered into the machine. “Nearly five minutes after reanimation. Reflexes and mind have both returned, though to what degree is as yet unknown. However,” he added gleefully, “subject appears to be crying. I do not believe that this is simple disorientation but embarrassment at having been caught trying to strangle Daniel Cain and myself.”
Oblivious to his partner’s observations, Cain stepped between the girl and her father. “No, Meg, don’t go near him!”
“Why? What is it?”
“He—he’s not well,” Cain extemporized. “Emotional trauma.”
“Over us?”
Before Cain could answer, Mace strode in, his .38 drawn. He took in the room and whistled. “Dan, Ms. Halsey, you all right? What the hell happened here?”
“I can explain, sir,” West said, slipping the recorder into his back pocket.
“Who are you?”
“West,” he said, walking toward Cain. “Herbert West. And that,” he said slowly, deferentially, his eyes on the handgun, “that is Dean Halsey.”
Mace’s brow knit, and he studied the disheveled figure. “Dean Halsey? What the hell’s he doin’ under the sink?”
“Resting, sir.” West wrapped his arm around Cain’s, sending chills down the young man’s spine. His touch was cold, impersonal. “You see, I came down here to visit Mr. Cain, who was here working. Halsey arrived moments later, and—well, he just started ranting at us, sir, rather irrationally.”
“No!” Megan screamed. “He wasn’t irrational, just angry.”
Mace looked from Halsey to his daughter. “Woman, he may have been angry before, but he sure looks irrational now.”
Megan began to sob. “Daddy, no—” she muttered, and started toward him. Cain held her back, and she beat at him with her fists.
“Megan, you can’t help him.”
“How do you know? Let me go. I want to hold him!”
Cain glanced at West, who nodded; reluctantly, the young man let her go, watching closely as Megan knelt beside the dean, her arm around his shoulders. He continued to shake and whimper like a dog, but he didn’t harm her. Cain was relieved to see that, unlike their last subject, at least some of his human sensibility had returned.
Mace looked around and waved his gun at John Doe. “What’s that there?”
West rubbed his hands together. “That, sir—that’s a corpse.”
The guard frowned. “No shit, Doc. I know it’s a corpse, but what I want to know is what the hell it’s doin’ on the floor!”
“Well, we . . . uh . . . needed it for protection.”
“You what?”
“You see, Halsey came in and grabbed that implement”—he pointed to the bone saw—“and went crazy. Daniel and I are alive only because we were able to shield ourselves with . . . with the body we were studying.”
Mace stroked his chin, then stepped toward Halsey. “Dean Halsey? Can you understand me?”
The dean continued to simper, his shoulders heaving pitifully.
“Dean Halsey, just answer me—is that true?”
Halsey turned and snarled. Megan shot Mace an imploring look. He backed away. “I’m calling the police.”
West cleared his throat. “Do you think that’s wise, sir? There may be a scandal—”
Mace studied the smaller man. “What’s with you, boy, you got shit for brains?” The guard didn’t elaborate, merely bit down on his cigar and stepped around West to the wall phone. West swallowed his anger, pursed his lips, and pushed his glasses up by the bridge. Spotting the vial of reagent, he casually walked over and reclaimed it, slipping it into his shirt.
Taking in the panorama of pain and destruction, and finally feeling the bruises and cuts he’d sustained, Cain suddenly dropped to his hands and knees. Shivering and trying desperately not to heave, he shut his eyes and rolled onto his side, holding his belly.
Pulling a sheet from the doorway of the morgue, West went over and gently covered his colleague. He stooped and gave the back of Cain’s hand a reassuring pat.
“It’s shock, Daniel, that’s all. Don’t worry, you’ll recover.”
Cain nodded limply, and West remained at his side—more to impress Mace than to help Cain. Peering across the room, West watched the rudimentary way in which Dean Halsey interacted with his daughter. The reanimated dean rocked against her, occasionally slobbering blood on her blouse. Halsey’s inability to speak clearly suggested that, even at just over one minute, they’d waited too long to administer the reagent. But, as unfortunate as that was, West took enormous pride in the fact that at least they’d done better than they had with the savage John Doe.
And, he reflected, o
ne thing more was also true: they’d do even better next time.
CHAPTER
9
The police car hopped violently as it turned off Kadath Street and hit the hospital ramp. In the back seat, Vinnie Papa listed to one side and scowled.
“He’s dead, Karlin. He isn’t going anywhere. Slow down.”
Officer Dave Karlin acknowledged the order and touched the brake as he corkscrewed down the winding ramp. He pouted as they pulled to the curb at the basement. It was his first assignment, and not only did he have to drive slowly, but he couldn’t use the siren because this was a hospital. Worst of all, it wasn’t even a robbery in progress or a murder. Someone had cut up a corpse. They could have finished their Big Macs instead of tossing them aside and coming over when they got the call.
His homburg pulled low on his head, Papa stepped from the car and walked briskly toward the doors. They parted sideways, his large white raincoat swirling around him as he marched down the hall. A small, thin man, Papa had a confident step, that of a man who had the law on his side and a .22 strapped to his chest. He dealt mostly with drugs that came through Arkham on the Springfield-to-Boston run, but traffic was light since the gubernatorial election was nigh and the pushers wanted their man, “Blind Eye” Stevens, to win. So Papa was playing free safety, taking the crimes that didn’t fall clearly under anyone else’s jurisdiction.
He passed the elevators and shook his head as he saw a man pacing nervously outside the autopsy room. If Mace was anxious, it must’ve been bad.
“How’s it going, Mace?”
“You know me, Vincenzo. I don’t complain.”
Papa knew it, all right. Mace hadn’t complained when he spent three years in prison for taking mob money to throw a Super Bowl, and he didn’t complain when he spent another eighteen months behind bars for beating up the mobster who’d ratted on him. Mace had been hired three years before, and quickly, when the black man who held the post before him was fired. Papa was glad to see he was still gainfully employed.
“So? What’ve we got here?”
Mace brought him up to date as he unlocked the door and showed him into the autopsy room. Papa took in the carnage dispassionately while Karlin deposited some undigested pickle and special sauce in a nearby wastebasket.
Papa turned to Mace. “First I want to see Halsey, then you can take me to these hotshot students.” He jerked his head to one side as he started toward the door. “After that, you can show Officer Karlin here to the emergency room.”
Cain and West sat on a bench in the small white cubicle on level L. In the twenty years since Miskatonic had been built, the room had been used mostly for relatives of patients who became violent, usually against the doctors who had been caring for the family member. Only once had it been used for a criminal interrogation, when the body was stolen from the morgue. Hands folded in his lap, knees bobbing, Cain was unhappy to be number two.
West sat hunched against the wall, his arms crossed tightly near his shoulders.
What had happened made no sense. In terms of cell death, the time that had elapsed between Halsey’s demise and his reanimation had been insignificant. Certainly he should have come back with much more intelligence than he did . . . more than John Doe, at any rate. Of course, now that he thought of it, Rufus’s cells did seem more settled and responsive to stimuli under the microscope; he wondered if the serum might work better in cumulative doses. Perhaps, like building an immunity to any drug or poison, the body needed time to recognize and accept the reagent.
“They’re going to put us away,” Cain said despondently.
West heard voices in the hall. “You’re tired, Daniel, you’re not thinking clearly. Just let me do the talking, and we’ll be fine.”
Cain snickered. “I’m going to be like Mace, working as a security guard after blowing a promising career.”
West hushed him with a slashing motion of his hand. He tilted his head to the door, listening. Someone was talking about them—the level L guard, Jan Kelleher; Mace; and a man. No, Kelleher was saying, they hadn’t given anyone any trouble. No, Mace said, they were not troublemakers. Yes, Mace remarked, West was strange . . . but Cain was not. No, he didn’t think they were gay. At least not Cain. The doorknob turned, and West shot back against the wall.
“So,” said Papa, studying the young men’s files as he entered, “we have a pair of guys in trouble with the dean. Then all of a sudden the dean loses his marbles.” He shut the door and looked down at the young men. “You Cain?” He eyed the taller youth.
Cain nodded.
“Cain, Dr. Hill tells me you’re a good student. How’d you manage to get your loan kiboshed?”
Cain cleared his throat, choked anyway. “Sir, it had nothing to do with school. Dean Halsey wasn’t happy that I was seeing his daughter, so he took it out on me that way.”
“Really pissed you off, didn’t it?”
“Yes sir, it did.” Realizing he’d just incriminated himself, Cain added quickly, “But Megan—Ms. Halsey—and I had worked something out. If she couldn’t persuade him to reinstate the loan, she was going to take out a personal loan and lend me the money. I’d have been able to stay.”
Papa scratched his brow, lifted the brim of his hat. “Presumably, Dean Halsey wouldn’t have known she was doing this.”
“No, sir.”
“And if he found out, he’d have been furious.”
“Yes, sir,” Cain agreed, “but—what are you saying? That I attacked him?”
“You said it, not me.”
“Great. I thought we were just talking here.”
West contributed in a sing-song voice, “Whatever happened to Miranda?”
Papa leaned on the armrest, his face hard. “Miranda got out of jail on a technicality, West. But that doesn’t happen here in Arkham. Guilty people go to jail, and they stay there.”
West looked down at his fingernails. “I’m glad to hear that. I shall feel safe walking the streets at night.”
Papa stiffened. He folded a stick of gum into his mouth, bent close again. “Dr. Hill was right, West. You are a cocky little shit. What about you? Some kind of vivisection you did got you tossed out of school—”
“It wasn’t vivisection. It was a purely chemical experiment.”
“Halsey wrote that you were cutting up a live cat. That sounds like vivisection to me. I’ll bet, West, that Dean Halsey was pretty well pissed at you, too, when he found you downstairs.”
“Quite. Maybe that’s what caused his mind to snap.”
“That’s your professional evaluation?” Papa taunted.
“It is. Check with any reputable psychiatrist, Detective. You’ll find that in many people extreme stress can cause violent mental as well as physical reactions, from incontinence to madness. Given the momentary loss of awareness he seemed to suffer first, I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire episode were triggered by petit mal.”
“Is that a fact?”
Papa rose and faced the door as he rubbed his forehead.
“Will that be all?” West asked.
Cain shot him a stunned look, which West parried with an intense look of his own. It told Cain to back off, he knew what he was doing. Cain slumped against the wall.
Papa turned. “You two live together, right?”
Cain nodded.
“Anything fishy going on?”
“Fishy?” Cain asked.
“Sexual. You guys lovers?”
Cain snickered, and West’s eyes fell to the floor.
“No,” Cain replied, “we’re not lovers. I’m engaged to be married, for Christ’s sake.”
“So are half the guys who give Tootsie Pops to little boys in schoolyards.” Papa slipped the file under his arm. “Yeah, you can go. But you can’t leave Arkham. Dr. Hill is examining Dr. Halsey right now. If there’s anything in his system, like drugs that aren’t supposed to be there, you guys are going to have some hardball questions to answer.” He leveled his gaze at West. “Drugs, We
st, like lysergic acid diethylamide—say, 350 micrograms. Or JB-336. Something a smart guy like you would know how to administer, and in just the right dose to cause someone’s mind to snap.”
West was unintimidated. He rose slowly.
“Detective, Dr. Hill stole research from a man I admired very much. I despise him for his failings as a scientist and as a human being. I assure you, if I were going to risk prison to destroy someone, it would not have been Dean Halsey.”
Papa seemed pleased. “Is that a threat?”
“No, merely an observation. I believe in telling the truth, Detective. And the truth is, neither Daniel nor I lifted a finger against Dean Halsey.”
The detective considered this, then reached for the doorknob. “Like I said, don’t go taking any trips. I may want to talk to you again.”
Cain nodded, and West just stared as the detective left the room. Mace looked up from Jan Kelleher, quickly erasing all traces of the seductive look he’d been wearing. Giving the young men a low thumbs-up behind his back, he went with Papa to reclaim Officer Karlin.
Megan stood in Dr. Hill’s office, staring into the small padded room adjoining. Beyond the window, his face nearly as pale as his white straitjacket, Dean Halsey alternately strutted like a cock and rammed the cushioned walls like a bull. His hair stood out like tumbleweed, and there was a feverish look in his eyes, something less than lunacy but far from normal. His strength, when they’d tried to jacket him, had been extraordinary. He’d neither rested nor spoken in the hour since they’d brought him here, though at least he’d stopped spitting up blood. Only a trickle crept from his nostrils now and then, or where he broke the skin when he struck the glass.
“Daddy . . . Daddy, come back to me.”
Hill stepped quietly behind her and laid his hands on her shoulders. “He can’t hear you . . . or see you. That’s a one-way mirror.”
