The Devil's Assassin

by Brian

  “Yes. Our government is in talks with Argentina’s government to bring the animal to the Princeton Primate Research Lab.”

  “So what’s next?”

  “We study the Maero, continuing researching the written past and oral histories, and capture or kill the ones we know about. And while we should be more cautious, we should also keep our perspective and not panic.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Jay Miele of Rutgers University for speaking with us tonight.”

  “Glad to be of help, Sam.”

  ›

  Lying on a bed in a dark room, the bed’s occupant throws off the covers and turns restlessly to face the moonlit window. He tosses and turns, uncomfortable due to the heat. Awake, his gaze moves from the moon outside his window to the hand on the bed in front of him. He is surprised and puzzled by the hair which covers the back of his fingers and hand. It’s more than was there before. Maybe it is the angle of the moonlight he thinks, or that he is dreaming.

  Casually, still half asleep, he looks at the rest of his body. He is covered with hair from his stomach to his toes. Disturbed now, he jumps out of bed and stands in front of a mirror that’s near his bed. He looks at himself up and down in the mirror. He can see his face, Linus’s face before him, but it is adorned with a thin beard. His chest, legs, and feet are covered with fur. He tests his voice. It is not his.

  As he looks with disbelief at the image of himself as a Maero, an image of June fades into the mirror and she is standing before him as she looked standing outside his hotel room in Argentina. Very quickly, without knowing why, his lance is out and he tries to stab the image in the mirror. Just as quickly as he does so, her image is gone from the mirror and he closes his eyes. When he opens them again it is the hairless Linus Hather who stands in front of the mirror in his boxer shorts. He looks again at himself in confusion and touches the mirror.

  Linus goes to the chair on which his pants and shirt are draped and puts them on without an idea of why he is doing so. He picks up his car keys, walks through the house toward the front door and leaves.

  ›

  Linus Hather’s Jeep pulls up in front of a moderately new looking, two-story, suburban house. He gets out of the vehicle and closes the door. For a moment he just looks at the house from where he stands. Then, as if breaking free of some indecision or worry, he moves around the Jeep and walks up the driveway toward the house’s front door. Before he reaches the porch, he steps off the sidewalk and goes around the right side of the house. He stops at a window and reaches a fur covered hand toward it. It is covered with a sturdy, locked insect screen. The next window is the same. Another window he passes by as it is too high.

  Just beyond this is a brick chimney where he can pull himself up for access to a low roof over the back of the house. He pulls himself up to this ledge and then climbs nimbly onto the roof. He walks up the slope of the roof toward the front of the house and down the slope in the front. The roof extends over the porch in the front of the house and affords access to two windows in the front. These are the last chances to enter the house via windows. The first one he sees is open a little. He smiles in anticipation, pulls the screen off quietly, and opens the window slowly and quietly. He climbs into the dark room and looks around. No one is here. It is a guest room perhaps.

  He walks out through the open door of the room and into the hallway. There are two more doors at the far end of the hallway. It is darker in the hallway and he stops when he sees a red light blinking on the ceiling. He doesn’t know what it is but decides that it doesn’t concern him and he moves on to the door on the right of the hallway. He grasps the doorknob and turns it with extreme care. The door creeps open. This room has no bed but instead a desk, chair, and bookshelves. He turns around and with the same care just as slowly opens the door on the other side of the hall.

  At last! He finds what he was looking for: June Dituro asleep on her bed. She lies on the bed half covered by a light sheet. It is a hot night. A fan blows back and forth across the large master bedroom. He moves across the large room as quietly as a shadow and is almost as difficult to see. Finally he is near her. He could touch her and some part of him appreciates the sleeping woman’s beauty. But then his lance comes out. He looks for the right spot on her chest.

  Suddenly her eyes open, she sees the creature in front of her and screams in terror.

  Usually a scream like this would not deter the Maero from his work, but her scream brings an immediate bark from an old hound dog. The dog jumps from his dog bed, situated in the cooler bathroom and runs the short distance to the bed on a direct heading to attack the intruder.

  The creature, having missed his chance, and with an angry dog headed straight for him, decides to leave as fast as he can. He heads for the bedroom door and the dog follows close behind. The creature makes a left at the first room at the end of the hallway and scuttles quickly out the window. The dog stops at the window and barks a few times before heading back to the bedroom.

  June has a T-shirt on and is pulling on some jeans. She pats the dog quickly as she heads out of the room. “Good boy!”

  She heads down the hall with the dog at her heels and looks out the window of the room through which the Maero has escaped. Instead of seeing the creature, she sees a man getting into his car.

  “Hey you,” she shouts. “Did you just see something run by?”

  He continues to get into his car, apparently not hearing her.

  “Something familiar about him,” she says to herself and the dog. She slams the window closed, locking it, runs down the stairs and flies out the front door. The man has already started away down the street. She runs to the end of the driveway but decides she cannot follow in her bare feet. She cups her hands around her mouth and calls out after the car.

  “Liiinnuuuuusssss!” She stands there bewildered for a moment. But soon, fear of the creature returning prods her to seek the safety of the house and the companionship of her dog.

  ›

  Linus is stirring restlessly in his bed. He finally sits up, picks up the phone near his bed and dials.

  “Hello, June. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, Linus. Why? You okay? You don’t sound so good.”

  Linus runs his hand through his hair in relief. “Oh, sorry. I just had a hell of a nightmare and wanted to check and see if you were okay.”

  “Good as gold,” says June brightly.

  “That’s a relief.”

  “I need you, Linus,” implores June, suddenly.

  Linus raises an eyebrow. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Why what, Linus?”

  “Didn’t you just say ‘I need you’?”

  “No, I said I’m as good as gold.”

  Linus shakes his head in confusion. “I’m going to go now.”

  “Call me later?”

  “Yeah, I will,” says Linus.

  “Bye.”

  Linus places the phone back in the cradle. “I’m hearing things, and having bad dreams. What next?”

  He collapses back onto the bed, not intending to sleep, but as tired as he from his travels he quickly ends up fast asleep.

  ›

  Later Linus stirs in his bed. He sits up, stretches, and rubs his eyes. After he works his way out of bed, he walks out of his bedroom to the kitchen. He finds an apple in the refrigerator, rinses it off and takes a bite. Walking into the dining room he sees that Sava is awake. The lemur has an unusual, fearful reaction when he sees Linus, though, as if he doesn’t know him at all.

  “What’s the matter with you,” says Linus. The animal continues its noise, much to Linus’s aggravation, until he throws a blanket from the sofa over the cage. Slowly the noise decreases.

  Linus turns toward the computer and takes another bite from his apple, enjoying its taste. The answering machine is on the desk and he notices the blinking message light. He depresses the playback button.

  “Linus, are you there? Something was in my house a few minutes ago. The dog cha
sed him away. I’m scared.” A beep and then another message. “ Linus. Linus. Call me as soon as you get back.” Then a third message plays. “Hello. Hello. Linus, still not in? Where are you? I need you, Linus. I neeeed yoouuu.”

  ›

  Linus is in the dining room with a sleeping Sava nearby. He takes a bite from the apple he is holding, enjoying its oddly salty taste. He looks at the apple and it is specked with what looks like blood. He uses a finger to wipe his lip and sees more blood. The light on the answering machine is blinking. Linus depresses the playback button.

  “as soon as you get in. I’m afraid it was the creature . . . Bye.”

  ›

  Linus’s bedroom is dark and hot. He sits up in his bed and looks wearily around the room. He is covered with sweat. He jumps off the bed as if it is scalding hot and bounds toward the nearest light switch. On his way to the kitchen he turns on each light switch as he passes. In the refrigerator he sees an apple sitting next to a couple of bottles of beer. He scowls at the apple and takes a beer. His “Ha!” is more a nervous exclamation than one of triumph. He takes a deep drink and moves to the dining room. Sava is sound asleep. The light on the answering machine is flashing a red numeral one.

  Linus stares at the machine. He doesn’t want to listen to the message but in the end he reluctantly presses the play button.

  “Something was in my house, Linus. Are you there? . . . Call me as soon as you get in. I’m afraid it was the creature. Bye.” Beeeep.

  Linus is stunned. It is just too hard for him to believe that the creature was at June’s house and that he dreamt it. He picks up the phone and dials. He hears a busy signal. “Maybe she’s talking to the police.” He hangs up.

  “Let’s see. Should I wait till she gets off the phone or go straight to her house? . . . It would help if I knew where her house was.”

  He tries her number again with no success. He holds the flash button and tries Jay’s number. There is no answer there either. “Well, where the hell are you?!”

  He dials 0 and asks for the number for the Cherry Hill police department.

  “Cherry Hill police.”

  “Hello, officer. My name is Linus Hather. A friend of mine, her name is June Dituro, called me a little while ago and said she’d seen something at her house – possibly a Maero.”

  “Oh, a Homo assassinatus, aye?”

  “Right. Did she call you?”

  “No. We haven’t had any calls for Homo assassinatus tonight.”

  “I wonder why she didn’t call. Listen officer, I am requesting that you send a car out to her house to investigate.”

  The policeman sighs, “Sure. Where’s she live?”

  “All I know is that she lives in Cherry Hill.”

  “Oh, well, that should narrow it down. I thought you were her friend.”

  “We just met last week.”

  “All right then, I’ll have dispatch look her up and send a car.”

  “I don’t suppose you could tell me that address while you’re at it officer.”

  “Ha! You suppose right. I don’t know you from Adam buddy.”

  “Oh all right. Whatever. Just get a car over there as quick as you can. Please.”

  “We will. Is that all?”

  “Yes. Goodbye.”

  “Bye.”

  Linus hangs up the phone and thinks about how to get June’s address. An idea comes to him and he turns on the computer and signs onto the Internet. He types June’s name and city into Yahoo People Search and within a couple of minutes he has her address.

  “Yes! Thank God for the Internet.”

  He writes the address down on a small piece of paper and goes back to his room where he quickly dresses. He pauses for a moment when he finds himself in front of the mirror and looks at himself, half expecting to see the creature there as he did in his dream. But he doesn’t. He grabs his car keys and leaves the house for his car.

  Chapter 11

  Linus’s car pulls up in front of a two-story suburban house in a tree-lined neighborhood in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. The house seems strikingly similar to the one he’d seen in his dream. He gets out of the car and closes the door. He runs up the driveway toward the house’s front door. There is a dim light inside. He rings the doorbell. No answer. He peers into the nearby living room window. There is no activity that he can see.

  He goes back to the door and rings the doorbell again. Looking down on the dark porch, he sees something he didn’t notice before. An envelope is sticking halfway out from under the door. It has his name on it. He opens it and reads.

  “Linus, sorry for dragging you way out here. I was a little spooked, so after I called the search team I went to the lab. If you’ve come all this way, come on over there and keep me company. June”

  Linus folds the note which contains the address of the lab and places it in his back pocket. He runs out to his car and drives away.

  ›

  Linus and June are sitting in her office. Her faithful old hound is there as well receiving a good rubdown from Linus.

  “Thank goodness you were there, Falstaff,” says Linus to the dog. To June he says, “Dreams aside, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a Maero ended up in your house. They must be even smarter than we feared.”

  “You think they have higher reasoning function?”

  “Yes,” says Linus. “And who knows what else to help them in their single-minded mission. Has anyone opened up the Argentine animal’s skull yet?”

  “No! There are noninvasive ways to study him for now. You and I could go and give him an MRI if you like. We’d get a good look at what’s inside his head.”

  “All right. But I still want to be there when his brain is looked at from the inside.”

  June gets up leading Linus out of the room. The old hound starts to get up. “Stay boy,” says June. “You’ve done good tonight. I’ll be safe with Linus.”

  As they walk down the hall June continues talking, “It’s very eerie that you were having a dream about the very thing that was happening to me. I’ve never believed in all this paranormal stuff.”

  “It is disturbing. I hope it doesn’t mean I have some kind of psychic connection with the Maero.”

  They arrive at a cold examination room and June opens the door and walks in. It is darker in here and the one light she turns on doesn’t chase all the shadows away. It’s enough for them to see, though.

  “Maybe your connection was with me in your dream.”

  Linus smiles. “I’d prefer it was that.”

  June smiles and hands him a lab coat. “Button this up over your clothes. We’ll wear gloves and masks as well.”

  “I thought we weren’t going to open him up.”

  “Gowns, gloves and mask are required in this room. Protocol is important to follow even if you think the precautions won’t be necessary.”

  After they don the safety clothes, June goes to a cooler, a typical 3 x 3 morgue door, opens it and slides out the tray. The two of them get it onto a rolling examination table.

  “We’ve been calling the creature a “he” the whole time, is it?” asks Linus.

  “Yes.”

  June moves the exam table over to an MRI unit. They slide the table into the unit. Linus points to the creature’s beard. “I wonder if the females have beards.”

  She chuckles. “That’d be attractive.”

  The two of them walk to a set of computer monitors and keyboards a few feet away from the MRI unit. Once there, June turns the unit on. “Okay, we’ll be seeing the brain in a moment. What you’ll see won’t be as dynamic as a living brain would be, but it’ll still be instructive.”

  The image is being built on the screen by the computer, slice by slice.

  “I see what you mean,” says Linus. “I’ve seen MRIs of people’s brains and they’re more colorful and dynamic.”

  ›

  At the back entrance of the Primate Research Facility, where the employees park their cars the door closes b
ehind an unauthorized visitor. This visitor makes its way up the stairs to the second floor of the lab. At the top of the stairs another door is easily pulled open allowing entrance to the second-floor hallway. The visitor walks down the hallway and turns into a doorway to its left a few steps from the stairwell.

  ›

  In June’s office the phone rings. The office is empty except for Falstaff, who raises his head from sleep. It rings four times before the dog gets up and barks.

  ›

  The Maero has found the laboratory where Sahar, the young scientist was killed. It looks around the room, sniffing subtle odors and sensing things that humans can’t. This creature is slightly different from the first one Linus had caught and that June had brought to the lab and the dead one that is presently in the cold examination room. This Maero has less masculine facial features including no beard and wider hips.

  It is a female Maero.

  She scans the room, goes to the cage where the other Maero had been kept and sniffs the area around the cage. Sensing that another Maero had been here, she growls. Then she follows the path that the captured Maero had taken when chasing Sahar. She squats where it had killed Sahar, sniffs again and suddenly exposes her lance, licking it as if sharing the kill, or anticipating another.

  The Maero then gets up and continues to follow the path the other creature had taken through the room. When she gets to the door she looks right, down toward the end of the hall where he had gone. She has just come from there. She turns left.

  ›

  In the dim light of the morgue/examination room Linus and June are in front of the monitors, studying the dead creature’s brain.

  “You see this?” says Linus. “These animals are definitely not bilobal like humans. They have four definite hemispheres.”

  “Maybe it’s a reflection,” says June. “Let me clear it and start it again.”

  She clears the screen and presses the rescan key. After a couple of minutes the same image is drawn onscreen. “You’re right. He appears to have four hemispheres where humans have two. What do you think it means?”

  “You’re the scientist,” says Linus. “You tell me.”