Plague of the Manitou

by Graham Masterton

  ‘Just a minute,’ the woman said. ‘Why are you so sure that it was the bedbugs that made them sick?’

  ‘Because of the nuns.’

  ‘What?’ she said, and I never saw anybody turn so white.

  ‘Both times, the guests who stayed in those hotels before they got infested were nuns.’

  The woman grasped my upper arm, so tightly that it was almost painful. ‘Let’s find a room where we can talk,’ she said.

  I turned back to Rick and Dazey and lifted my hand with my fingers spread out, to indicate that I was going to be away for five minutes. Rick gave me a thumb’s-up in acknowledgement, and then the woman in the lab coat led me through the double doors and into a corridor, still gripping my arm.

  She opened two doors before she found a small unoccupied office with a desk and two chairs and heaps of medical reports. She switched on the light and said, ‘Nuns.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said cautiously. ‘Nuns.’

  ‘You don’t have any actual proof, though, that it was nuns who were carrying the bedbugs?’

  I hesitated for a moment. Then I said, ‘Listen, doctor—’

  ‘I’m not a doctor. I’m a professor of epidemiology. My name’s Anna Grey, and I’m working with a team who are trying to isolate this virus and find a way to inoculate people against it. I came to Cedars-Sinai this morning to take some fresh blood samples.’

  I looked up at the clock on the wall. It was two minutes shy of ten after five. She saw me looking and said, ‘I couldn’t sleep. Besides, this is very, very urgent. I don’t have to tell you that, do I?’

  I said, ‘What I’m going to tell you, you’re not going to believe a single word of it, but I have to tell you anyhow, because I’m sure that it’s the cause of this sickness. My name’s Erskine, by the way. Harry Erskine. I’m a kind of a therapist.’

  ‘Which particular field?’

  ‘Personal growth, I guess you’d call it. But that’s neither here nor there. The most important thing I need to tell you about is these nuns.’

  I told her everything. I told her all about the nuns, and the roses that had been pushed through my window, and Father Zapata biting off his manhood, and Loudun Syndrome. I told her all about Misquamacus and my struggles with him in the past. I told her about Matchitehew and Megedagik.

  To my growing amazement, she sat there and listened to all of this without saying a word. In fact, she nodded now and again, as if she actually understood what I was talking about. Like, this was a leading medical expert, in the middle of trying to deal with one of the most disastrous epidemics to sweep across America since Spanish flu, and yet she was prepared to take the time out to hear me give her one of the most bizarre stories that anybody could have invented.

  ‘You know what finally convinced me?’ I told her. ‘Misquamacus and this parish priest were both reincarnated in almost exactly the same way. They were both burned alive. They were both reborn on the back of some innocent woman’s neck.’

  Anna said slowly, ‘What was his name? This parish priest.’

  ‘Does it matter? I’m not sure that I remember.’

  ‘Please, try.’

  I stared at her hard. ‘Do you believe what I just told you?’

  ‘Try and remember his name, if you can. Otherwise we can always Google it.’

  I closed my eyes for a moment, and then I opened them again and said, ‘Gander. That’s it. Something like that, anyhow.’

  ‘It couldn’t have been “Grandier”?’

  ‘That’s it, Grandier. How did you know that?’

  ‘Because he’s here. He’s here now. You’re absolutely right. He’s come back, just like your Native American wonder-worker came back. And, yes, I do believe you, Mr Erskine. I believe every word. The nuns have appeared to me too, and Misquamacus’ sons.’

  ‘You’ve seen them?’ I have to admit that I was stupefied. ‘You’re actually telling me that you’ve seen them?’

  She nodded again. ‘They warned me, just like they warned you. Only, they didn’t tell me to spread the word about this sickness. They told me that I mustn’t try to find a cure for it.’

  Now it was my turn to sit and listen while Anna explained how her partner David had died and how he had spoken to her after he was supposed to be dead. She explained how the nun had appeared in the morgue, and cursed her, and assaulted her. She told me about the bedbugs that had infested her bed, and how they had turned into one monster bedbug, and how the two exterminators who had come to her apartment had been killed. She told me how David had reappeared, and how she had pushed him off her balcony. She was supposed to be talking to the police about that later, but there had been no body in his suit, only ash, and the police had more important things to worry about, right at the moment, than ash.

  When she had finished, we just sat there and looked at each other.

  ‘Why us?’ said Anna. ‘Why have they appeared to you and me, and nobody else? Not so far as we know, anyhow.’

  ‘Well, I know why they appeared to me, because they told me,’ I said. ‘They want to drive us out of their land, us palefaces, the same way that we drove them out, with diseases that they had no immunity to. But they want us to know why we’re being driven out. What’s the point of getting your revenge on somebody if they don’t realize it’s you who’s doing it and what you’re doing it for?’

  ‘But you said they tried to kill you, with that dog?’

  ‘It could be that they were just trying to scare me into getting on with it and doing what they wanted. Giving me a kick up the rear end, so to speak.’

  Anna said, ‘You don’t know what a relief it is, Mr Erskine, talking to you. I was sure that I was going mad.’

  ‘Call me Harry, please. If we’re both being haunted by nuns and Native American spirits, we might as well be on first-name terms. But what about this Grandier character?’

  ‘I think what your poor priest Father Zapata said about him was probably right. Father Surin passed the demon Gressil on to him, after he was reborn, and Gressil is the demon of infection. David said that “demon” is simply another name for “virus”, which of course is true. If somebody got sick in the Middle Ages, people blamed possession by Satan, or one of Satan’s minions. Misquamacus’ sons have somehow gotten together with Grandier, in whatever dimension it is that spirits exist in, and between them they’re looking for their revenge.’

  ‘Me – I’ve run into this kind of supernatural stuff before,’ I said. ‘But did you ever think that you would? Like, you’re a scientist, and science is logical, isn’t it? Some of it strains the brain – well, it strains my brain, anyhow, especially that God-particle stuff – but at least it generally makes sense.’

  ‘Viruses are very far from logical, Harry. Viruses are very perverse, and sometimes you can almost believe they have a mind of their own.’

  ‘But why do you think they picked you to appear to, these nuns? Why are they warning you off, instead of some other eppy-deema-lollogist?’

  ‘I don’t know for sure, but since you’ve been talking about those two sons of Misquamacus, I’ve been wondering about the Scalping Virus.’

  ‘I heard about that. That was some kind of sickness when some people in the Midwest went bald, wasn’t it, like they’d been scalped?’

  ‘Exactly that. And it was mainly me who devised an antiviral drug that stopped it in its boots.’

  I didn’t like to correct her and say ‘tracks’, and so I just said, ‘You think that might have something to do with your being warned off from trying to cure this virus?’

  ‘It could well have. The Scalping Virus wasn’t difficult to kill off. It was quite an old-fashioned virus, if you understand what I mean. It didn’t seem to have ever been exposed to any of the latest antivirals, not even tamiflu, so it hadn’t mutated to have any resistance to them.’

  ‘I see what you’re driving at,’ I told her. ‘It could have been the brothers’ first shot at spreading an epidemic among the palefaces, but it
all came to nothing because you knocked it on the head. That’s why they went to Grandier to find a disease that wouldn’t be so easy for us to cure, and that’s why they warned you not to try.’

  ‘So why didn’t they simply kill me? Why didn’t they give me the disease, like they gave it to David?’

  ‘If you defeat them fair and square, Anna, they won’t kill you, just like they won’t kill me. It’s part of their tribal lore. And I’m guessing now that you did defeat them, by curing their scalping disease, so you’re untouchable. By them, at least. It sounds like they could still send your David to do their dirty work for them.’

  Anna said, ‘This is like a nightmare, isn’t it? It’s so crazy that it must be true. And all of those people are dying out there. That’s no nightmare. That’s reality.’

  ‘I saw two nuns out there. You need to get your security after them.’

  ‘You’re sure they weren’t bona fide nuns?’

  ‘Short of lifting up their habits to see if they have bedbugs crawling up and down their legs, I have no way of telling.’

  ‘All right,’ said Anna. ‘I’ll have a word with security.’

  I stood up. ‘I’d better go see how Mazey’s doing.’

  ‘I’m afraid to tell you that she’s probably going to die,’ said Anna.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know.’

  ‘Can you come down to the Public Health laboratory in Downey later today? It’s a lot to ask, under the circumstances, but I think we need to talk more about this, and I’d very much like you to meet my colleague Epiphany and tell her what you just told me.’

  ‘You think it will help?’

  ‘I’m sure it will. It’s difficult enough understanding how a virus attacks the human body. It’s even more difficult understanding why.’

  We shook hands. I have to say it was one of the strangest meetings that I’d ever had in my life, and one of the most coincidental, but maybe it wasn’t really a coincidence after all. We were both being controlled by influences that were very much stronger than we were. If my cards hadn’t all turned black, I would have told my own fortune, but maybe that had happened because I wasn’t supposed to know what it was.

  TWENTY-SIX

  We carried Mazey out of the hospital and drove her back home. What else could we do? She was dying, and at least she would die with people around her to keep her as comfortable as possible and tell her that they loved her.

  She was so weak when we lifted her on to her bed that she couldn’t lift up her head, although now and again she twitched and retched and brought up a tablespoonful of blood. Dazey sat beside her stroking her forehead and wiping her mouth with a damp towel whenever she needed it.

  Kleks came into the bedroom and sat at the end of the bed looking sorrowful, in the way that only dogs can look sorrowful.

  I went into the living room and said to Rick, ‘Is it OK if I borrow your van?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘That doctor woman wants me to go down to her research laboratory in Downey. She thinks I might be able to help her out.’

  ‘What, today?’

  ‘Yes, today. It’s urgent, Rick. The sooner she finds out how to kill this virus, the more lives she’s going to save.’

  ‘I’ll drive you there,’ said Rick. He looked into the bedroom. ‘I don’t want to watch Mazey die.’

  ‘What about Dazey?’

  ‘She’ll manage. She’s tough. Besides, she has a good friend next door if it all gets too much, Veronica.’

  Rick went into the bedroom and talked to Dazey. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I saw Dazey nodding and laying a hand on his arm as if to reassure him that she was going to be all right. He may have been her friend and her lover, but she and Mazey had grown up together, and this was a time when they really needed to be close.

  We climbed into the van and backed out of the sloping driveway with smoke coming out from under the tires.

  It was a hot, clear day and very quiet. In fact, the only indication there was a deadly virus sweeping across the city was that it was so quiet. There was scarcely any traffic, apart from a few stray cars that didn’t look as if their drivers had much idea of where they were going and occasional ambulances and squad cars screaming past us. The streets were almost deserted, with hardly any pedestrians, even on Hollywood Boulevard, and the sidewalks were covered with dried blood, like maroon varnish, from people who had collapsed before they’d managed to make it home.

  ‘This disease scares the shit out of me,’ said Rick. ‘What am I going to do if Dazey gets it?’

  ‘Let’s just take it one step at a time,’ I told him. ‘If fate throws a knife at you, you can either seize it by the blade or by the handle.’

  Rick nodded, but after he’d been driving for a few minutes longer, he said, ‘What the fuck does that mean?’

  ‘I don’t know. But it always makes my old ladies happy.’

  It took us about a half-hour to reach Downey. The Public Health laboratory was located on Erickson Avenue, a dull-looking single-story red-brick building with a gray shingled roof. As Rick parked his shiny bug-covered van outside the entrance, I could see people in lab coats staring at us out of the windows. We had only started to climb the steps to the entrance when a uniformed security guard came out and held up his hand to stop us.

  ‘Help you, gentlemen?’

  ‘We’ve been asked to come here by Professor Grey. Well, I have. My name’s Harry Erskine, and this is my friend Rick Beamer.’

  The security guard clicked on his r/t and said, ‘Security here. Two guys here say that Professor Grey invited them here. Name of—?’

  ‘Erskine,’ I repeated. ‘Harry Erskine.’

  The security guard listened and nodded, and then he said, ‘Follow me. I’ll fix you up with identity badges.’ He sounded genuinely put out that he hadn’t been told to throw us off the premises.

  Once we had pinned on our badges, he led us with squelchy rubber-soled shoes along a shiny waxed corridor. Through successive windows, I could see people in glasses and lab coats staring at microscope monitors and holding up test tubes. It was almost like a movie set for a film about a research laboratory.

  When we reached the very end door, he knocked and opened it for us. ‘Professor Grey? Your visitors.’

  It was gloomy inside the laboratory because the blinds were drawn down, and the only light came from three computer screens. Anna was sitting on the opposite side of the room, frowning at what I assumed was a microscope, although it was completely unlike the microscopes we used to have in science lessons at high school. Beside her, a tall black woman was taking a tray of test tubes out of a refrigerator.

  ‘Harry,’ said Anna, standing up and coming across to greet us. ‘I’m so pleased you’ve come.’

  ‘This is Rick,’ I told her. ‘It’s Rick’s partner’s sister who’s sick, so he knows what this is all about.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Anna. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Just about as sick as it’s possible to be,’ said Rick. ‘I don’t think she’s going to be with us much longer. That’s if she hasn’t left us already.’

  Anna beckoned the black girl to come over and join us. ‘Harry, this is Epiphany. She’s been working with me on the Meramac School virus and this bedbug virus, too. I want you to tell her everything that you told me – about the nuns, about the Native American wonder-workers, everything.’

  ‘Anna’s told me most of it,’ said Epiphany. ‘All the same, I’d really like to hear it from you.’

  She was taller than I was, Epiphany, but she was very pretty, with feline eyes and glossy crimson lips and her hair braided with multicoloured beads. I don’t suppose I should have been taking any notice, under the circumstances, but she was so full-breasted that the top three buttons of her lab coat were straining.

  ‘Have you had any breakfast?’ asked Anna. ‘How about some coffee?’

  ‘I could murder a cup of coffee,’ said Rick. ‘Black, with six sugars. No,
make it eight. My energy level’s at an all-time low.’

  Anna went back to her microscope, while Epiphany started to prepare slides from the test tubes that she had taken out of the fridge. I stood beside her at her workbench and told her all about the sons of Misquamacus and the nuns. It wasn’t easy, because we both had to wear surgical masks and my voice was muffled, which meant that I had to stand very close to her. She smelled of some very arousing perfume.

  ‘It’s almost incredible,’ said Epiphany, when I had finished. ‘If Anna hadn’t had the same experience as you, I never would have believed it.’

  A young girl assistant brought us a tray of coffee and a plate of cookies. Anna raised the blinds, and we sat down together and talked.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ I said. ‘I’m beginning to wonder if there isn’t some kind of a parallel between the way I first beat Misquamacus and the way you cured the Scalping Virus.’

  ‘I don’t follow you,’ said Anna.

  ‘Well, Misquamacus called on Native American spirits to get his revenge on the white man. I had a friend who was an Indian shaman, Singing Rock, and he explained to me that every rock and tree and animal and body of water has its own spirit, which is called a manitou. Misquamacus concentrated the energy of those manitous against us and used them to summon up the forces who created the Native Americans in the first place, the Great Old Ones. But what we did was call on the spirits that exist in computer servers and motor vehicle engines and airplanes and all kinds of modern technology – and those modern manitous were a hundred times more powerful than the manitous you can call up from rocks and trees and muskrats. In fact, there’s more spiritual energy in a cellphone than there is in a muskrat.

  ‘Every time we create something, we put part of our soul and our intellect in it, and we give it a manitou. Misquamacus was trying to beat us with manitous that were nearly four hundred years out of date. You can’t beat a guided missile with a bow and arrow.’

  ‘I still don’t see what you’re getting at,’ said Anna.

  ‘Matchitehew and Megedagik tried to wipe us out by using the Scalping Virus. But you said yourself that the Scalping Virus was behind the times, biologically speaking. It hadn’t mutated to resist modern drugs, so it wasn’t too hard for you to find a cure for it.’