by Ward Parker
Follett wanted to run as far and fast as he could from this evil, but he had to rescue Angelica. How could he get her past the two men? He decided to go summon hotel security and bring back reinforcements. He stepped to the door only to find it locked by a deadbolt that required a key.
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”
Follett turned to face Greer who still sat in the chair. He seemed genuinely disappointed.
“You can disagree with my research methods,” Greer said, “but you can’t deny the benefits to patients who have lost the use of their limbs.”
“Do no harm! You violated your oath!”
“You’re wrong. They were sub-humans.”
“You’re despicable. Now unlock this door and let me leave you before I become ill.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“Harold, please. Just let me out.”
“You’ve made your displeasure with my work perfectly clear. I don’t believe I can trust you now. I can’t take the risk that you’ll try to jeopardize all I’ve worked for, all I’ve achieved. Simply because of a bunch of colored people that no one will ever miss.”
He was sulking—Follett couldn’t believe it. He looked around the room, hoping to see the key to the door or an open window.
The boy on the operating table stirred.
“Oh, look at that,” Greer said. “I’ve wasted too much time jawboning with you about work you’re too narrow-minded to appreciate. Sidney! We need to administer more ether. And bring the submission instrument.”
Sidney entered the room, closing the door to the other compartment behind him. He held a pistol pointed to the floor, a .38 caliber Colt revolver like the American officers carried in the Philippines and gave Follett a cold stare. His transformation from meek servant to threatening aggressor was startling enough that it nudged some pieces of uncertainty in Follett’s mind.
“Are you the one who kidnapped the people for Doctor Greer?”
Sidney didn’t answer but Greer said, “Yes, he was. He’s quite efficient at it, too. With a little help from ether or chloroform, of course. He even wore a hood just like your monster friend’s when he had possession of research subjects, in case he was seen.”
He was efficient also because he didn’t stand out when he traveled into the black community, Follett realized. Of course, Mr. Bishop accused a limping white man of taking their daughter—he was impossible not to notice and remember in that neighborhood, making him a perfect scapegoat. Sidney, however, wouldn’t have caused a second glance when he passed through. Follett cursed himself for being so single-minded about the limping man.
“How can you assist this man in harming your own people?” Follett asked Sidney.
“Just because they’re black doesn’t make them my people,” Sidney said, his smile gone. “Our subjects are the dregs of society. Leeches on the rest of us hard-working folk. And Doctor Greer is a genius. It’s a privilege to assist him in work this important. It’s given my life a purpose.”
“What is wrong with you?”
“Sidney, Doctor Follett is going to assist me in the procedure,” Greer said. “Use the submission instrument to ensure that he cooperates.”
Sidney pulled back the hammer of the pistol and aimed it at Follett.
“What are you talking about?” Follett said. “I’m not assisting you.”
“You are, Frank. I’m tired of all your moral condescension. You’re going to get your hands dirty, so to speak, and participate in my research. Even if you don’t come around to my side you’ll at least stay quiet.”
Greer put the mask of the ether inhaler upon the boy’s face, making an adjustment to the air valve above the flask filled with colorless liquid. He pulled a drape from the table beside the operating table, revealing an instrument tray: scalpels, clamps, sponges, and a large bone saw.
Follett’s heart raced. This was unthinkable. He could not—would not—remove the healthy limb of a kidnapped boy. Yet a gun was pointing at him and these men would not hesitate to kill him, though it was clear that Greer would prefer not to.
He would have to play along and then think very quickly.
Follett cleaned his hands in a washbasin and moved closer to the table where Greer was drawing a line with an oil pencil on the patient’s left thigh just below the knee.
“I’ll make it easy for you, old chum. Only one limb today.”
Follett glanced at the instrument tray, at the scalpels and bone saw. With a little distraction and fast reflexes he might be able to seriously injure Sidney with a scalpel and free the pistol, but he couldn’t in good conscience do that. This wasn’t like making Spencer black out temporarily, or like stabbing the Pole who was trying to kill him. To argue that circumstances absolved him would make him no better than Greer.
Just then someone knocked loudly on the door at the end of the car. The three heads snapped in that direction.
“Ignore it,” Greer said in a low voice.
The rapping continued, then the doorknob rattled.
“Doctor Follett, you in there?” The voice was Sam Clemens’.
“Yes! Please help me.”
Greer cursed. “Don’t be an idiot, Follett.”
“Should I shoot him, Doc?” Sidney said, moving the gun closer to Follett’s head.
“No. No one can break in here. The doors are reinforced, albeit to keep people from getting out. And after Follett performs the procedure I don’t care what he does, because he’s now an accomplice.” He looked at Follett with stern eyes. “Come on, Frank, do it now. Sever the muscle tissue below the patella and then use the bone saw.”
He handed Follett a scalpel.
Clemens resumed banging on the door at the end of the car. It sounded as if a second person had joined him, throwing their weight at the door.
“Ignore them,” Greer said. “They can’t get in here. And hotel management will refuse to let anyone violate my privacy. Do not forget my social status. Now let’s get on with it.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Greer stood across the operating table from him. Sidney was just behind Follett to his right. A quick glance told him that Sidney was distracted, glancing over his shoulder at the railcar’s door.
With the scalpel held low in his right hand, Follett spun to the right, slicing through Sidney’s suspenders just above where they were buttoned to his trousers. The trousers, a couple of sizes too big for the slim man, dropped to his ankles. At the same time Follett’s left forearm knocked the gun away from his direction.
The gun fired, shattering a glass medical cabinet. Follett pushed Sidney, and as the man shuffled backwards to keep his balance, he stumbled on his fallen trousers and landed on his backside.
Follett was on top of him in an instant, bashing Sidney’s nose with his elbow and both hands wresting the gun from his hand. Sidney, blood streaming from his nose, tried to grab it back until Follett head-butted him in the jaw and Sidney collapsed.
Well, this physician did do some harm, but nothing too serious, he thought as he got to his feet.
Then white-hot pain seared his left shoulder. He spun around and caught Greer’s wrist before he could stab again with his bloody scalpel.
Greer’s elderly, patrician face was purple with fury and he was surprisingly strong. He slipped his wrist from Follett’s grasp and managed to slash his forearm as he did so. Follett didn’t feel any pain. He glanced at his arm and saw his coat was cut cleanly through and the fabric turned dark as blood pulsed from the rift.
Did he get an artery? Follett worried.
As Greer circled to make another attack, Follett pointed the gun at him and cocked it.
“Stop, Harold. It’s over now.”
“You won’t shoot me. You’re too squeamish for that.”
“Not when it comes to saving my own life.”
Follett continued aiming at Greer’s head as the doctor circled him, holding the scalpel like a sword, feinting here and there, searching for an op
ening to inflict another wound. Follett held his left forearm high, his wrist against his collarbone as the hot wetness spread down his arm, shirt, and vest. He was woozy. He had to end this quickly so he could apply a tourniquet to his arm before it was too late. To make matters worse, Sidney stirred as he began to regain consciousness.
“Oh, I got you good, didn’t I?” Greer said, smiling. “The ulnar artery? Sheer luck on my part.”
“Indeed. I must admit that you’ve won.”
Follett held the pistol high, pointed at the ceiling.
Greer lunged with the scalpel.
And Follett pivoted away like a bullfighter and swung the pistol with all his might, smashing it into the back of Greer’s head, just behind the ear. Greer dropped to his knees.
Follett took the keyring from Sidney and moved as quickly as he could to the end of the car, his hands shaking as he found the key that unlocked the deadbolt. When he opened the door, Clemens and the porter who had helped Follett earlier looked up in surprise, crowbars in hand.
“Sam, I need your necktie for a tourniquet. Now.”
Clemens looked in horror at Follett’s blood-stained clothing.
“Why not use your own tie?”
“I thought perhaps you’d enjoy owning one tie that wasn’t white. Red would look good on you.”
Clemens cursed under his breath, reached over and removed Follett’s necktie.
“Put it just above the elbow,” Follett said. “That’s good, but make it tighter.”
His arm became numb as the circulation was cut off.
“I need a surgeon to suture my artery because I can’t do it myself. And I need one quickly.” He said to the porter, “I want you to run to the front desk. Tell them we need a doctor as well as the new security director and his men here immediately.”
“Yes, suh,” he said and set off jogging down the platform.
“Greer and Sidney will regain consciousness soon. Let’s find something to tie them up with.” Follett handed Clemens the pistol. “And use this if you need to. They’re murderers.”
“What do you mean?”
Follett ignored the question and led the way into the car. He felt weak from the blood loss, as if a sheet of gauze separated him from reality.
“Doctor Greer has an operating room in his railcar?” Clemens said. “Reminds me of the expression ‘taking your work home with you.’” Then he noticed the boy on the table and his expression darkened as he realized what it meant. They searched the cabinets until they found some surgical tape to bind the ankles and wrists of the two prone men. Both were showing signs of waking up.
“Are they the ones who murdered all those people?” Clemens said in a raspy voice. “Surely, this can’t be true.”
“Papa?” It was the voice of a young woman coming from the other room.
Clemens’ face went white.
“Papa, is that you?”
Clemens rushed to the door to the other room, with Follett behind him. It was unlocked and they entered.
Angelica, Angel Worm, lay beneath a blanket on a small cot. She looked at them with wise eyes and smiled.
“My God, it’s her,” Clemens whispered. “Susy, I’m here. Speak to me.”
“Papa, are you all right?” Angelica’s lips moved but the delicate voice of a cultured young woman issued from them. “Are you in danger? I sensed something evil that wanted to do you harm.”
“I’m perfectly fine now, sweetheart. The villains have been defeated. You need not worry.”
“Papa, Langdon is here, too. We miss you.”
“Langdon, you poor, sweet baby. You never deserved to die so young.” Tears streamed down his cheeks. “And Susy, you must banish all self-criticism from your thoughts. You were my delight, you were a prodigy. I feel I know you better now by reading all your writings since you left us. I know better now what a treasure we had in you. Your intellect was so much finer than mine. If illness hadn’t taken you, you would be just as famous as me—even more so. Rest, dear heart, rest.”
“Thank you, Papa. I’m sorry but I can’t stay. Give my love to Mother and Clara and Jean and everyone else.”
“I will. Goodbye, until we see each other again.”
“Goodbye, Papa. I’ll be watching over you.”
Clemens sat silently for a while and wiped his tears. The wrinkles carved into his elderly cheeks remained wet. He turned to say something to Follett but stopped, concern on his face.
“Doc, you don’t look so good. Oh, damn it all, you’re bleeding badly again.”
Follett tried to answer but no words came out. His tourniquet had loosened and there was a puddle of blood below his chair. This was not good. His heartbeat became erratic. It was beating in a waltz rhythm as the strains of Isabel’s song, “After the Ball,” filled his ears. He shook his head, trying to clear it.
His vision became blurry and narrowed, as if he were looking through a telescope. His chin dropped to his chest and his telescopic view was now of the brown and green carpeting of the floor, stained crimson by his spreading pool of blood. His eyes closed.
But still he saw the pool of blood. It came closer, as if the telescope were drawing him into it, and now he saw it in microscopic detail: the red blood cells, the platelets, the white blood cells spinning and drifting as their world leaked out from him and colonized a new world atop the carpet fibers. He was in the blood with them, it seemed, and as he floated past them they grew larger as he shrank. Then he dropped in among the carpet fibers that were like strange, looped trees rising from the clutter of dust particles and microbes within the flood of blood. He was compelled to keep moving, to hurry, and he swam down to the floor and he passed through the wood and then the steel of the belly of the railcar and then the wooden cross ties and gravel of the track below and his speed was increasing as he bored through the earth, the claustrophobic, smothering feeling that he had to get out of here.
Finally, he broke free, free of the earth and all its constraints. He floated weightless in the darkness but he was not afraid. Ahead of him was a bright light, brighter than the sun but it didn’t hurt his eyes. He stared right into it as he drew closer and grew happier as he sensed the benevolence radiating from the giant light. It was so large now that it erased any taint of darkness and as he entered it he sensed the presence of many others with a cacophony of voices, happy, welcoming, but too many to understand.
At the back of his mind, the part still tethered to the earth, he remembered the medical literature of patients who returned from death describing a bright light such as this, but he quickly shrugged off the thought. There were people approaching him from the light, people who knew him.
He couldn’t yet make out the faces but he sensed that long-lost friends and relatives were among those who approached. But no Isabel. Isabel was not there to greet him.
Hello, Father.
A young boy, who looked to be around four years old, stood in front of him. It was Follett’s son—he knew it beyond any doubt even though his son had died at childbirth. His son! This was exactly how he would have imagined him had he survived to be a normal boy, a fine young chap, indeed. He was slender, blue-eyed with an unruly shock of brown hair and ears that stuck out. Freckles were sprinkled about his face like Isabel’s. Whether he was clothed and with what did not register.
The boy smiled at him and their eyes met with understanding and love.
Then his son disappeared.
* * *
“I didn’t know if the transfusion would do the trick, but he seems to be—oh, there he is!”
Follett was lying in the railcar, in a convertible bed in the sitting room. His head ached. Clemens sat in a chair beside him.
Dr. Hood’s whiskered face peered down at him.
“You should thank your friend, Mr. Clemens, for the use of his blood.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve been bled dry by a friend, Frank, so think nothing of it.”
“Interestingly,” Dr. Hood sai
d, “I read that a physician in Germany has discovered there are different blood types. Apparently, you two have the same or compatible types.”
“Mine, I am sure,” said Clemens, “is the sweetest type there is.”
“Maybe it will improve my disposition,” Follett said. “But now, please tell me that Greer and Sidney are in custody.”
“Yes, the Pinkertons have them,” said Marshal DeBerry, who was standing off to the side. “Sheriff Frohock will arrive tomorrow and he’ll need your testimony. From what Sidney told me, he did the kidnapping and disposing of bodies. Unfortunately, he doesn’t remember where he put some of the earlier victims. The strangest thing is, Dr. Greer freely admitted everything and acted as if he had done nothing wrong. A great man like that reduced to a common murderer, and he wasn’t the least bit ashamed or contrite.”
“Great men, or at least the richest of them, often believe they are above the law,” Clemens said. “And sometimes they truly are.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Astogani’s grip upon the material world was loosening. He did not have the power to exist purely as a spiritual force; he needed a living organism to serve as his host. And there was no way he would choose one of the feeble humans or a lower animal. He hung suspended above the land, siphoning what energy he could from the mass of life forms below, but still his consciousness and strength were fading. Soon he would have to return to the Underworld.
Then he sensed a gigantic feeling of anguish from one of his own former species. Somewhere, not far away, a cral was in shock and mourning. Astogani homed in on the powerful emotions.
There was ship, and inside a cabin, a cral had just transformed from a human back to its true cralish form, a telegram lying on the floor with news of its master’s death. The cral was in an unusually vulnerable state due to its emotional upheaval and the disorientation that always occurs for a few moments just after a transformation. Astogani moved like lightning—
