Frankenstein - Prodigal Son

by Dean Koontz

  CHAPTER 86

  FEARFUL OF THE day-bright world in all its dazzling busyness, Randal Six earlier took refuge in an alleyway Dumpster.

  Fortunately, this enormous container is half filled with nothing more offensive than office trash, largely paper and cardboard. There is no restaurant or produce-market garbage, no organic stench and slime.

  Throughout the day, until the storm clouds come, the sun beats down on Randal. This is the first sun of his life, bright and hot, frightening at first, but then less so.

  He sits with his back to a corner, cushioned by paper refuse, his world reduced to manageable dimensions, and works one crossword puzzle after another in the book that he brought with him from his room in the Hands of Mercy.

  Frequently traffic passes through the alleyway. And people on foot. Initially he pauses in his puzzle at each possibility of an encounter, but eventually he realizes that they are not likely to disturb him.

  If a sanitation truck comes to empty the Dumpster, he is not sure how he will cope. This possibility didn't occur to him until he had already taken sanctuary in the container. His hope is that trash is not collected every day.

  Having missed breakfast and then lunch, he grows hungry as the day progresses. Considering his accomplishments to this point, he can endure a little hunger.

  At Mercy, Randal's untouched meals will alert the staff to his absence, though perhaps not for a while. Sometimes, when particularly deep in autistic detachment, he leaves a meal untouched for hours. He has been known to eat both breakfast and lunch an hour before dinner—then leave his dinner until near midnight.

  Before departing Mercy, he closed his bathroom door. They may think that he is in there.

  From time to time, people toss bags of trash and loose objects into the bin. The top of the big Dumpster is over their heads, so they cannot easily look in and see him.

  Sometimes the trash strikes him, but it's never a problem. When the people leave, Randal pushes the new stuff away and re-establishes his cozy nest.

  Midafternoon, a man singing "King of the Road" approaches along the alley He can't carry a tune.

  Judging by the sound, he's pushing some kind of cart. The wheels clatter on the cracked pavement.

  Between lines of the song, the cart-pusher grumbles incoherent chains of four-letter words, then resumes singing.

  When this man stops at the Dumpster, Randal Six puts aside his puzzle book and pen. Instinct tells him that there may be trouble.

  Two grimy hands appear at the rim of the bin. The singer takes a grip, grunts and curses as he clambers up the side of the Dumpster.

  Balanced on the edge of the big container, half in and half out, the man spots Randal. His eyes widen.

  The guy is perhaps in his thirties, bearded, in need of a bath. His teeth are crooked and yellow when he reveals them to say "This here's my territory, asshole."

  Randal reaches up, grabs the man by his shirtsleeves, pulls him into the Dumpster, and breaks his neck. He rolls the dead body to the farther end of the container and covers it with bags of trash.

  In his corner once more, he picks up the puzzle book. He turns to his page and finishes spelling derangement.

  The dead man's cart stands near the Dumpster. Eventually someone might notice it and wonder about its owner.

  Randal will have to deal with the problem if and when it arises. Meanwhile, crosswords.

  Time passes. Clouds darken the sky. Although still warm, the day grows cooler.

  Randal Six is not happy, but he is content, at ease. Later, he will be happy for the first time.

  In his mind's eye is the city map, his route to happiness, the O'Connor house at the end of the journey, his guiding star.

  CHAPTER 87

  BECAUSE OF THEIR fine-tuned metabolism, members of the New Race did not easily become drunk. Their capacity for drink was great, and when they did become inebriated, they sobered more quickly than did those of the Old Race.

  Throughout the day, Father Duchaine and Harker opened bottle after bottle of communion wine. This use of the church's inventory troubled the priest both because it was in effect a misappropriation of funds and because the wine, once blessed, would have become the sacred blood of Christ.

  Being a soulless creature made by man but charged with religious duty, Father Duchaine had over the months and years grown ever more torn between what he was and what he wished to be.

  Regardless of the moral issue of using this particular wine for purposes other than worship, the alcoholic content of the brew was less than they might have wished. Late in the afternoon, they began to spike it with Father Duchaine's supply of vodka.

  Sitting in armchairs in the rectory study, the priest and the detective tried for the tenth—or perhaps the twentieth—time to pull the most troubling thorns from each other's psyches.

  "Father will find me soon," Harker predicted. "He'll stop me."

  "And me," the priest said morosely.

  "But I don't feel guilty about what I've done."

  "Thou shalt not kill."

  "Even if there is a God, His commandments can't apply to us," said Harker. "We're not His children."

  "Our maker has also forbidden us to murder... except on his instructions."

  "But our maker isn't God. He's more like... the plantation owner. Murder isn't a sin... just disobedience."

  "It's still a crime," said Father Duchaine, troubled by Harker's self-justifications, even though the plantation-owner analogy had a measure of truth in it.

  Sitting on the edge of his armchair, leaning forward, tumbler of vodka-spiked wine clasped in both hands, Harker said, "Do you believe in evil?"

  "People do terrible things," the priest said. "I mean, real people, the Old Race. For children of God, they do terrible, terrible things."

  "But evil," Harker pressed. "Evil pure and purposeful? Is evil a real presence in the world?"

  The priest drank from his glass, then said, "The church allows exorcisms. I've never performed one."

  With the solemnity of both profound dread and too much booze, Harker said, "Is he evil?"

  "Victor?" Father Duchaine felt that he was on dangerous ground. "He's a hard man, not easy to like. His jokes aren't funny."

  Harker rose from his chair, went to a window, and studied the low, threatening sky that impressed an early dusk upon the day.

  After a while, he said, "If he's evil. . . then what are we? I've been so... confused lately. But I don't feel evil. Not like Hitler or Lex Luthor. Just... incomplete."

  Father Duchaine slid to the edge of his chair. "Do you think... by living the right way, we might in time develop the souls that Victor couldn't give us?"

  Returning from the window, adding vodka to his glass, Harker said with serious demeanor, "Grow a soul? Like... gallstones? I've never thought about it."

  "Have you seen Pinocchio?"

  "I've never had patience for their movies."

  "This marionette is made of wood," Father Duchaine said, "but he wants to be a real boy."

  Harker nodded, downed half his drink, and said, "Like Winnie the Pooh wants to be a real bear."

  "No. Pooh is delusional. He already thinks he's a real bear. He eats honey He's afraid of bees."

  "Does Pinocchio become a real boy?"

  Father Duchaine said, “After a lot of struggle, yes."

  "That's inspiring," Harker decided.

  "It is. It really is."

  Harker chewed his lower lip, thinking. Then: "Can you keep a secret?"

  "Of course. I'm a priest."

  "This is a little scary," Harker said.

  "Everything in life's a little scary"

  "That's so true."

  "In fact, that was the theme of my homily last Sunday"

  Harker put down his drink, stood before Duchaine. "But I'm more excited than scared. It started two days ago, and it's accelerating."

  Expectantly, Patrick rose from his chair.

  "Like Pinocchio," Harker said, "I'm chang
ing."

  "Changing . .. how?"

  "Victor denied us the ability to reproduce. But I... I'm going to give birth to something."

  With an expression that seemed to be as much pride as fear, Harker lifted his loose-fitting T-shirt.

  A subcutaneous face was taking shape beneath the skin and the surface fat layers of Harker's abdomen. The thing was like a death mask but in motion: blind eyes rolling, mouth opening as though in a silent scream.

  Recoiling in shock, Father Duchaine crossed himself before he realized what he had done.

  The doorbell rang.

  "Birth?" the priest said agitatedly. "What makes you think it's birth instead of biological chaos?"

  Sudden sweat sheathed Harker's face. Sullen at this rejection, he pulled down his T-shirt. "I'm not afraid. Why should I be?" But clearly he was afraid. "I've murdered. Now I create—which makes me more human."

  The doorbell rang again.

  "A breakdown in cell structure, metastasis," Father Duchaine said. "A terrible design flaw."

  " You're envious. That's what you are—envious in your chastity."

  "You've got to go to him. Get his help. He'll know what to do."

  "Oh, he'll know what to do, all right," Harker said. "There's a place waiting for me in the landfill."

  The doorbell rang a third time, more insistently than before.

  "Wait here," said Father Duchaine. "I'll be back. We'll figure out what to do... something. Just wait."

  He closed the door when he left the study. He crossed the parlor to the front hall.

  When the priest opened the front door, he discovered Victor on the porch.

  "Good evening, Patrick."

  Striving to conceal his anxiety, Father Duchaine said, "Sir. Yes. Good evening."

  "Just 'good evening?"

  "I'm sorry. What?" When Victor frowned, Duchaine understood. "Oh, yes. Of course. Come in, sir. Please come in."

  CHAPTER 88

  MOTH SHADOWS BEAT an ever-changing tattoo across the faces of Christ, Buddha, Amen-Ra.

  In the attic above Jonathan Harker's apartment, Carson, Michael, and Deucalion gathered at the wall-to-wall collage of gods, on which Harker must have spent scores of hours.

  "It seems to express such yearning," Carson said. "You can feel his anguish."

  "Don't be too moved by it," Deucalion advised. "He would embrace any philosophy that filled the void in him."

  He peeled away an image of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, then one of Buddha, revealing different forms and faces beneath, their nature at first mysterious.

  "God was only his most recent obsession," Deucalion explained.

  As other pictures were peeled away, Carson saw an underlying collage of Nazi images and symbols: swastikas, Hitler, goose-stepping soldiers.

  "Under all these faces of traditional gods is another god that failed him," Deucalion said. "A god of violent social change and racial purity There are so many of those."

  Perhaps at last fully convinced of Deucalion's nature, Michael said, "How did you know there was a second layer?"

  "Not just a second," Deucalion said. "Also a third."

  When Hitler and his ilk were torn off the wall, there was revealed an even eerier collage: images of Satan, demons, satanic symbols.

  Deucalion said, "The unique despair of a creature without a soul eventually leads to desperation, and desperation fosters obsession. In Harker's case, this is only the surface of it."

  Peeling away a horned-and-fanged demonic face, Carson said, "You mean... more layers under this?"

  "The wall feels spongy, padded," Michael said.

  Deucalion nodded. "It's been papered over twenty times or more. You might find gods and goddesses again. When new hopes fail, old hopes return in the endless cycle of desperation."

  Instead, Carson found Sigmund Freud in the fourth layer. Then other pictures of equally solemn men.

  "Freud, Jung, Skinner, Watson," Deucalion said, identifying each newly revealed face. "Rorschach. Psychiatrists, psychologists. The most useless gods of all."

  CHAPTER 89

  FATHER DUCHAINE RETREATED from the threshold as Victor stepped through the front door into the rectory foyer.

  The master of the New Race looked around with interest. "Cozy Quite nice. A vow of poverty doesn't preclude certain comforts." He touched one finger to Father Duchaine's Roman collar. "Do you take your vows seriously, Patrick?"

  "Of course not, sir. How could I? I've never actually gone to the seminary. I've never taken vows. You brought me to life with a manufactured past."

  In what might have been a warning tone, Victor said, "That's worth remembering."

  With a sense of entitlement, Victor proceeded along the hall, deeper into the house, without invitation.

  Following his master into the parlor, the priest asked, "To what do I owe the honor of this visit, sir?"

  Surveying the room, Victor said, "The authorities haven't found Detective Harker yet. We're all at risk until I reacquire him."

  "Would you like me to mobilize our people to search for him?"

  "Do you really think that would do any good, Patrick? I'm not so sure."

  As Victor moved across the living room toward the door of the study, Father Duchaine said, "Can I get you coffee, sir? Brandy?"

  "Is that what I smell on your breath, Patrick? Brandy?"

  "No. No, sir. It's... it's vodka."

  "There's only one thing I want now, Patrick. A tour of your lovely home."

  Victor crossed to the study door, opened it.

  Holding his breath, Father Duchaine followed his maker across that threshold—and found that Harker had gone.

  Circling the room, Victor said, "I programmed you with a fine education in theology. Better than anything you could have gotten from any university or seminary."

  He paused to look at the bottle of wine and bottle of vodka that stood side by side on the coffee table. Only one glass stood on the table.

  With alarm, Father Duchaine noticed that a wet ring marked the table where Harker's glass had stood.

  Victor said, "With your fine education, Patrick, perhaps you can tell me—does any religion teach that God can be deceived?"

  "Deceived? No. Of course not."

  The second ring could have been left by Father Duchaine's glass. He might have moved it to where it stood now, leaving the ring. He hoped that Victor would consider that possibility.

  As Victor continued around the study, he said, "I'm curious. You've had some years of experience with your parishioners. Do you think they lie to their god?"

  Feeling as though he were walking a tightrope, the priest said, "No. No, they mean to keep the promises they make to Him. But they're weak."

  "Because they're human. Human beings are weak, those of the Old Race. Which is one reason why my people will eventually destroy them, replace them."

  Although Harker had slipped out of the study, he must have taken refuge somewhere. In the living room once more, when Victor didn't return to the front hall but went instead toward the adjoining dining room, Father Duchaine followed nervously.

  The dining room proved to be deserted.

  Victor pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen, and Father Duchaine followed like a dog afraid that its hard master would find a cause for punishment.

  Harker had gone. In the kitchen, the door to the back porch stood open. The draft entering from the storm-dark twilight smelled faintly of the rain to come.

  "You shouldn't leave your doors open," Victor warned. "So many of God's people have a criminal bent. They would burglarize even a priest's home."

  "Just before you rang the bell," Father Duchaine said, amazed to hear himself lying so boldly, "I stepped outside for a breath of fresh air."

  "Fresh air is of no special value to those of you I've made. You're designed to thrive without exercise, on any diet, in fresh air and in foul." He rapped his knuckles on Father Duchaine's chest. "You are an exquisitely efficient organ
ic machine."

  "I'm grateful, sir, for all that I am."

  From the kitchen to the hall, from the hall to the foyer, Victor said, "Patrick, do you understand why it's important that my people infiltrate organized religion as well as every other aspect of human society?"

  The answer came to the priest not from thoughtful consideration but from programming: "Many years from now, when the time comes to liquidate those of the Old Race who remain, there must be nowhere they can turn for support or sanctuary"

  "Not to the government," Victor agreed, "because we will be the government. Not to the police or the military... or to the church."

  Again as if by rote, Father Duchaine said, "We must avoid a destructive civil war."

  "Exactly Instead of civil war... a very civil extermination." He opened the front door. "Patrick, if you ever felt in any way... incomplete... you would come to me, I assume."

  Warily, the priest said, "Incomplete? What do you mean?"

  "Adrift. Confused about the meaning of your existence. Without purpose."

  "Oh, no, sir. I know my purpose, and I'm dedicated to it."

  Victor met Father Duchaine's eyes for a long moment before he said, "Good. That's good. Because there's a special risk for those of you who serve in the clergy Religion can be seductive."

  "Seductive? I don't see how. It's such nonsense. Irrational."

  “All of that and worse," Victor agreed. “And if there were an afterlife and a god, he would hate you for what you are. He would snuff you out and cast you into Hell." He stepped onto the porch. "Good night, Patrick."

  "Good night, sir."

  After Father Duchaine closed the door, he stood in the foyer until his legs became so weak that he had to sit.

  He went to the stairs, sat on a riser. He clutched one hand with the other to quell the tremors in them.

  Gradually his hands changed position until he found them clasped in prayer.

  He realized that he had not locked the door. Before his maker could open it and catch him in this betrayal, he made fists of his hands and beat them against his thighs.