“Pete Bolin. Screw— er, Scouting Crew Unit Two,” Pete introduced himself.
Mr. Eckenberg grinned. “Were you about to say Screw You?”
“Yeah.”
“I rode with Screw You when I first got here.”
“No shit?”
“Nope.”
Mr. Eckenberg’s smile faded as he remembered why he’d come. He leveled a sober gaze at Mort and said, “Morton Lesser, the leader of the Archons would like to speak with you. Yaldabaoth sent me here personally to invite you to his office.”
“No shit?” Pete asked, looking impressed.
But Mort wasn’t impressed. He was terrified. His heart monitor jumped from 60 BPM to 120. An oily sweat suddenly gleamed on his brow. “Why does he want to see me?” Mort squeaked.
Pete picked up on Mort’s fear and scowled.
Eckenberg smiled, shrugged. “I’ve been dealing with those thi—the Archons for a couple months now, and I still have no clue how their minds work. They don’t think the same way we do. I believe Yaldabaoth feels responsible for your seizure during orientation. I think maybe he wants to apologize to you.”
Mort nodded. He felt numb. That was what fear did to you when you realized there was no way out. He had felt the same fatalistic nothingness when he got trapped in the Frito Lay van, when he realized he was going to die and there wasn’t any way he could avoid it. Pete had rescued him then, of course, but Mort wasn’t going to endanger his friend. If Yaldabaoth wanted to see him, he would go. What else could he do? If he refused, it would only alert the creatures that he knew their secret. And what might they do if they knew that he knew?
“Okay,” Mort said breathlessly. “Am I going there now?”
Eckenberg nodded. “He’d like to see you tonight. Doctor Whalen has already approved your discharge.”
Mort’s stomach churned. This was happening too fast. He hadn’t even had a chance to tell Pete the things he suspected.
As Mort’s thoughts raced, trying to anticipate the outcome of this much-too-rapidly approaching confrontation, Nurse Martin strode in with a sour look on her face. She unhooked all of the monitoring equipment with quick, jerking movements. She unbandaged Mort’s arm and removed the IV-- being gentle with this-- then taped a cotton ball over the tiny wound.
“It’s very cold out,” Mr. Eckenberg said. “Do you mind getting Mr. Lesser some warm blankets for the… um… ride over?”
Nurse Martin flashed Eckenberg a disdainful look and went to the room’s linen closet. As she took down a couple thin hospital blankets, an orderly entered the room and lowered the rail of Mort’s hospital bed. Pete and the orderly helped Mort into a wheelchair, though Mort felt perfectly capable of walking across the compound himself. The orderly flipped the footrests down and then departed.
Eckenberg started to say something to Peggy, but the RN turned sharply and stamped from the room.
Eckenberg whistled, eyebrows arched.
“I’m going along, too,” Pete said, taking the handles of the wheelchair.
“You don’t have to do that,” Mort said.
“That really isn’t necessary--” Eckenberg said at the same time.
“I’m goin’,” Pete replied, thrusting his chin out.
Eckenberg looked from Mort to Pete and sighed. “Very well.”
Mort allowed Pete to roll him from the room. He knew better than to argue with Peter Bolin. Pete would wrestle the devil to get his way. Besides, if the Archons meant to harm him, there was nothing either man could do to prevent it. The strange beings could fly. They could read minds. Hell, they could probably murder Mort telepathically if they wanted. Make his head blow up like the guy in that old movie Scanners. That could only mean that they didn’t plan to kill him, but Mort was frightened nonetheless. He didn’t know what they wanted with him, but he suspected it would be unpleasant. “Unpleasant” happened to Mort so often it should have been his middle name.
Eckenberg whistled the theme of The Andy Griffith Show as they crossed the hallway. At the nurse’s station, Dr. Whalen scowled, fists planted on his hips. Eckenberg seemed to take no notice of the daggers shooting from the eyes of the hospital staff. He walked beside Mort’s wheelchair with a bland expression, eyes front and center.
Eckenberg continued to whistle in the elevator as they made the short descent to the lobby. Despite his fear, Mort was tempted to whistle along with the man. I’m going crazy, he thought.
The camp administrator nodded and said hello to a couple of the people waiting in the lobby as they rolled past-- the politician in him—then they were outside in the piercing cold. As the three of them crossed the complex, Eckenberg picked up his tune where he’d left off.
The sky was cloudless. The stars seemed very bright and close. The moon was three quarters full and blazed like a silver lamp in the heavens. It was so bright, in fact, Mort could make out the jagged peaks of the Unicoi Mountains, the snowy summits a luminous blue in the ethereal light.
“Man, the air’s got a nip in it tonight!” Pete exclaimed, his breath steaming from his lips.
His voice seemed much too loud in the still December air.
The administration building loomed in the moonlight. Its windows were dark but for the top floor. Eckenberg directed Pete and Mort to a side entrance and fumbled out his keys. He let them through a red metal door with a peephole and directed them down a short, dark corridor to an elevator.
Eckenberg started to whistle again, but Pete said sharply, “Dude! You mind?”
“Sorry,” Eckenberg apologized.
The silence was worse, Mort thought as they made the short trip.
The elevator dinged and the door slid open. Mort spotted the Archon as soon as the doors parted. It was loitering at the end of the hallway, arms behind its back.
Mort recognized the creature. It was the being who had rescued him from Da Vinci, the one that called itself Metatron.
It turned as Pete pushed Mort from the elevator. Its eyes, black as pitch, narrowed just the tiniest bit.
It recognizes me! Mort thought. It remembers me from DuChamp! And for a moment, he was back there again. Metatron carrying him across the roof of the DuChamp Freight Company building, the hot wind blowing in their faces, embers swirling around them. The creature had gazed off across the inferno and murmured, “See your city burn, Morton Lesser. If I had a heart, I think it would have broken a thousand times already.” Its face had only been inches from his, and though Mort was only half-conscious, his brain visible through a hole in his head, he knew instinctively what manner of creature was holding him in its arms. Knew it and feared it, as the rabbit fears the hound.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to grab the frame of the elevator door. He wanted to leap up and run. Throw himself through the nearest window.
But he did none of these things.
Instead, Mort let Pete roll him from the elevator and onto the plush burgundy carpeting of the fourth floor hallway.
“Good evening, Metatron,” Eckenberg said to the creature.
Metatron bowed at the waist with a flourish, an anachronistic gesture. Its great glittering black eyes rolled toward Mort and its red lips tightened: a hideous grin, too wide, too full of teeth. “I remember you,” it murmured. Its voice was perfectly modulated. Beautiful, really. Was that honey-sweet voice also an illusion? “You’re looking well, Morton Lesser.”
Mort’s mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton, but he managed to croak, “More or less.”
Metatron laughed softly. “Indeed.”
Mort expected the creature to delve inside his brain, but that strange tickle did not come. There was no pain.
“Yaldabaoth would like to speak with Mort alone,” Metatron said. “Would you mind waiting here with me, Mr. Eckenberg? Mr. Bolin?” He glanced pleasantly from Pete to the administrator.
“Naw, that’s fine,” Pete murmured, eyes unfocused.
“Yes, fine, fine,” Eckenberg echoed.
Metatron took the handles of Mort’s whee
lchair, turned him toward Yaldabaoth’s office. The doors were cherry wood, deeply varnished. He could see his reflection in it, but no Metatron. Mort watched as the doorknobs turned of their own accord and the doors swung silently inward.
Metatron pushed him forward.
Mort didn’t know what to expect. Bare stone walls, dripping and slimy. Hooks and chains dangling from the ceiling. Instead, Yaldabaoth’s chamber was richly appointed, even charming. An abundance of lamps and wall sconces blazed cheerily. The walls were lined with books. Real books, too, not the fake ones rich people put on their library shelves to look worldly and well-read. A copper statue of Atlas, the Earth on his muscular shoulders, stood on the corner of a mahogany desk. Affixed to the far wall was a huge map of the United States, with circles and indecipherable symbols marked on it in red ink.
“Leave us, please,” Yaldabaoth said. He was sitting in a high-back leather chair, facing away from Mort.
Metatron bowed and withdrew, shutting the doors with a barely perceptible click.
“How are you feeling, Mort?” Yaldabaoth asked. He didn’t turn.
“Fine. Everyone keeps asking me that. I’m fine.”
Mort felt the creature probe his mind, a feather-light tickle.
“Please don’t do that!” Mort said quickly, his heart skipping a beat.
“I apologize. It’s a hard habit to break once you become accustomed to eavesdropping on the thoughts of other sentient beings. It’s always a great temptation.”
Mort felt the ghostly probe withdraw from his skull and relaxed... a little.
“Would you care for a refreshment? I have water, coffee.”
“No. No, thank you.”
Mort wished Yaldabaoth would turn. He didn’t like speaking to the back of the man’s chair. It left his imagination to run wild, and his imagination needed no encouragement.
His host was quiet for almost a full minute. Finally, gently, Yaldabaoth whispered, “You see us as we truly are. Naked, stripped of our glamours.”
It was not quite a question. Not quite a statement, either. It hung ambiguously in the air between them.
“I suppose so,” Mort said, just as softly.
The leather chair swiveled then, and the immense Archon turned with it, coming into Mort’s sight by degrees. Mort swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, but he did not drop his gaze. He took in the features of the wizened creature, trying not to flinch: the white, withered skin, the reflective black eyes and moist red lips, a bloody wound from which sharp white teeth, like crooked pickets, erupted. Its ears were tiny and pointed, Mort observed. Funny, he hadn’t really noticed their ears before.
“You know what we are?” Yaldabaoth inquired. Mort sensed there was no danger in answering the question. The creature was only curious.
“Vampires, right?” Mort said.
Yaldabaoth smiled. His chin dipped down, then came back up. “That is the modern name for my race. Your… human word for our kind. We don’t particularly care for it. So many negative connotations.”
Yaldabaoth did something very surprising then. He took a pack of cigarettes from his desk drawer and put one in his mouth. He didn’t light it with some tacky display of magical power. He lit it like everyone else: with a cheap plastic lighter. Puffing out a cloud of smoke, he shrugged. “A bad habit I acquired from a mortal acquaintance. That was… back in the 1920’s, I believe. You start to lose track of the decades when you hit four or five hundred years old.” He drew another lungful and blew it out. “You don’t mind, do you?”
Mort shook his head. “Nuh—no.”
“Good. I have to admit, I’m a little disconcerted by you, Mort.”
“By me?” Mort scoffed.
“Yes. My people have an instinctive fear of being seen by your kind. By that I mean, seen for what we truly are. In our natural form. Historically, you mortals have demonstrated an uncontrollable compulsion to drive sharp wooden stakes through our hearts. It’s a rather unpleasant trait. Very rude.”
Mort laughed. He couldn’t help himself.
Yaldabaoth smiled, his eyes twinkling. “Yes, we have a sense of humor. Some of us more than others.”
“So what are you going to do to me now that I know your secret?” Mort asked, feeling bolder. “Are you going to kill me? Change me into one of you?”
Yaldabaoth’s eyes widened. His grin widened too. “You’re very perceptive, Mort Lesser. That is why I summoned you here. I need to know what you intend to do with your knowledge. I cannot glamour your mind. The injury you sustained has rendered you immune to our telepathic abilities. Since I cannot make you forget what you have deduced, I need to ask you what you plan to do about us. Our motivations must be transparent to you.”
“Yes. You have to save our race because you feed on us. If we die, you die.”
“Precisely. Not exactly as… selfless as I’ve led your people to believe, I’m afraid.”
Mort shrugged. “It’s better than mutual extinction.”
Once more, Yaldabaoth’s eyes widened. “Precisely again. I’m a little shocked. You’re such a reasonable creature.”
Mort smiled. “What do you expect me to do? Lead a revolt against you? Find out where you hide your coffins and drive wooden stakes through all your hearts?”
Yaldabaoth looked grim. “It’s happened in the past.”
Mort leaned forward. It was his turn to ask a question. “Just tell me one thing, and be honest,” he said. “If you plan to kill me, you’re going to kill me. It’s not like I can do anything to stop you. I just want to know how your people see us. Are we cattle to you? Is this place, this New Jerusalem, some kind of... of farm?”
Yaldabaoth jerked back, offended. “Of course not! Mr. Lesser—Mort—we love you! I am not lying when I say that. Without your people, our race would wither and die. I would go so far as to say your species, your people, each and every one of you, are holy to us. We try very hard not to harm you. We can drink from you without killing, and when we are done, we charm your minds so that you do not even suspect what has happened. Please, you have to believe me. The only reason we use our mental abilities to hide our true nature is because your kind find us so repulsive. In the past, your people have led crusades against us. You drove us nearly to extinction less than a millennia ago.”
Mort sat back.“All right, I believe you. I don’t know why exactly, but I do. I promise, I won’t tell anyone. I’ll keep your secret safe. I swear.”
Yaldabaoth looked remorseful. He sighed and stabbed out his cigarette.“I wish it were that simple,” he said.
20
The Death of Morton Lesser
Dao-ming sobbed inconsolably on his chest. Pete stood off a pace, trying very hard to keep a grip on his emotions. Mort looked at them both, his feverish eyes gleaming, and thought: As I die, I will hold them close in my thoughts. Until the very last moment.
Melodramatic, yes, but Mort thought he deserved to be a little theatrical. He was, after all, dying today.
Doctor Whalen had left the room so Mort could spend some time alone with his friends. The doctor had been in and out all morning. He’d even placed the IV himself. In just a few minutes, they would wheel Mort into O. R. and administer a lethal dose of pentobarbital.
It was funny how things worked out.
Not ha-ha funny. No, not today. Funny in the mean-spirited way the Fates always seemed to reserve for people like him. But he was used to it. It was no different from all the times he’d been beaten up on the grade school playground or high school bullies poured Nair down his gym shorts or his college roommate stretched Saran Wrap across the toilet bowl so his piss splashed back all over his legs and feet. One thing could be said about a life that was so predictably vexatious: it taught a fellow to endure pain.
Like this pain, for instance.
Even with the drugs, the pain was bad. The zombie’s bite had swelled his arm so much it didn’t even look like a human arm anymore. It looked like a giant sausage with Mort’s stubby fingers po
king out the end. If it swelled much more, Mort was pretty sure it was going to split wide open, like a hot dog that had spent a little too much time spinning in the microwave. The doc had given him morphine to help with the pain, but even the morphine couldn’t quite trump the agony that bolted through his body whenever his arm shifted just the tiniest bit. Yes, sir, the pain was pretty bad, but strangely, he wasn’t really all that scared of the dying part.
He had expected to be more frightened than he was. To be honest, he thought he’d be pissing his pants right about now, but aside from a cold cramp of anxiety in his guts, he was keeping it together pretty good. More than anything, he was afraid he would lose his dignity, change his mind, start begging and blubbering, shame himself, but he’d done no such thing. He was calm. Calm and rational and unafraid.
It would all be over soon. His life. The universe according to Mort. Gone off the air like a bad television sitcom: quick and without much fanfare. But the pain would be over, too, and he wouldn’t have to suffer the degradation of turning into a zombie, so there was that. That was something, wasn’t it?
Besides, Dao-ming had come to see him.
“It’s not fair,” Dao-ming sniffed against his chest. Her raven black hair swooped across his shoulder. One tiny strand kept tickling his nose, but he couldn’t bring himself to brush it away, didn’t want to, worshipped that tiny strand of hair.
“It’s okay,” he consoled her. “It’s going to be fine.”
“No, it’s not, Mort!” she sobbed angrily. “It’s not going to be fine!”
The chest of his hospital gown was soaked with her tears. It was kind of gratifying. Pathetic as it might sound, it was almost worth dying to find out she really did care for him.
She’d only stayed away, she said, because of his non-immune status. While she was in the CCU with him, waiting for him to wake up after his brain surgery, one of the hospital staff had taken her aside and warned her she could infect him with the Armageddon Phage, especially if they were ever intimate again. The thought had horrified her. She decided that night, while he was still under, that it would be easier for him if she just quietly disappeared. Made a clean break of it. “I knew what you’d say if we talked about it,” she told him. “You’d say you wanted to be with me no matter what, and I would have given in. It was stupid. We could have been together all this time!” After Mort had gotten bit, Pete had marched over to the orphanage and cussed her up one side and down the other for abandoning his friend. As soon as she found out that Mort had become infected, she’d rushed to his side.
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