Petrified

by Graham Masterton

  ‘What can I say?’ Nathan told him, with a shrug.

  ‘This is utterly and completely impossible. I have never in my entire thirty-eight-year career seen a full-thickness burn heal so quickly and so comprehensively. Never.’

  ‘I don’t know what to tell you,’ said Nathan, although he would have given anything to be able to tell Doctor Berman right here and now about the phoenix project. He would tell him, before he left the burns unit, because if he could persuade Temple University Hospital to endorse what he had achieved, Schiller might change their minds and agree to fund the remainder of his research. First of all, however, he wanted to make sure that his hand regenerated itself until it was exactly as it had been before he had set fire to it.

  ‘I’ll come back later today,’ said Doctor Berman. ‘Meanwhile, you should keep your hand clean and dry, but otherwise I see no need for any further treatment. The way you’re healing, it seems to be a private matter between you and God, without any need for intervention from me.’

  SEVENTEEN

  Thursday, 11:18 a.m.

  Jenna was still sitting on the green-painted railing overlooking the river when Dan came over and said, ‘Would you believe it? Another statue just dropped out of the sky.’

  Jenna pushed her hair out of her eyes. There was a strong south-west wind blowing up the river this morning, ruffling the surface of the water. The blue plastic screens that surrounded the remains of Jimmy Hallam were rumbling and slapping, and even though Jenna didn’t know it, they sounded almost exactly like the wings of the creature that had killed him.

  ‘Shit,’ said Jenna. She had been planning to go home in a minute for a shower and something to eat, and maybe even a couple of hours’ sleep. ‘Where?’

  ‘Bartram’s Gardens. But it seems like it came down in the wetlands, so it isn’t too badly damaged.’

  ‘Anybody hurt?’

  ‘Not so far as I know. Nobody saw it fall. It was found by one of the volunteer gardeners, about forty-five minutes ago.’

  ‘Right, let’s go take a look. Let me tell Ed first. After he’s finished up here, he can come join us. If the statue is reasonably intact, maybe it will give him some idea of how to piece the other two together.’

  She pushed her way through a gap in the screens. Ed Freiburg was standing beside the beige, half-collapsed cannelloni of Jimmy Hallam’s unraveled entrails, talking to two of his assistant CSIs. All of them had splashes of blood on the soles of their rubbers, and their hands were all blood-red, too, like three murderers conspiring together.

  ‘Ah, Jenna, I was just coming to see you,’ he said.

  ‘Another statue came down,’ Jenna told him. ‘It landed in Bartram’s Gardens and Dan says that it wasn’t broken up too badly. Dan and me, we’re on our way now.’

  ‘OK. I’ll catch up with you in – what time is it? – maybe an hour. We’re still missing some parts of the jigsaw here. Or to be more specific, we’re still missing some parts of our unfortunate vic.’

  Jenna looked to the right, to where Jimmy’s head was lying in the road, and then slowly turned her head to the left, taking in all of the scattered bones and lumps of flesh and ripped-apart organs, until she reached his bloodstained sneakers, with his feet still inside them.

  ‘What’s missing?’ she asked. ‘It looks like you got most of him here. Albeit kind of dismantled.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s missing. His heart. And the thing of it is that we still haven’t located the hearts of the other two victims, Chet Huntley and William Barrow. I thought that they might have been torn to unidentifiable shreds, maybe, or lost off the side of the apartment block, like Mr Huntley’s head. If that had happened, there wouldn’t have been much chance of ever finding them, hungry stray dogs being fairly undiscriminating as to what they eat for breakfast.’

  ‘Shut up, Ed,’ Jenna interrupted him. ‘You’re making me feel pukish.’

  Ed looked around, his bloody hands spread wide. ‘But now this poor guy is missing his heart, too, and three missing hearts out of three is too much of a pattern for me to ignore.’

  ‘So what’s your conclusion?’

  ‘I haven’t come to any conclusions yet, but I definitely have a theory. All of these three victims were killed by something of considerable mass, flying through the air at considerable velocity – far too big and far too fast to be any known bird. I was beginning to consider the notion that it might be some kind of drone – you know, an unmanned remote-controlled airplane like those Predators that the military use in Afghanistan. But then these three missing hearts place a very large question mark over that. A drone can’t selectively pick a person’s heart out. No drone that I’ve ever heard of, anyhow.’

  ‘So what can?’

  ‘A creature that looks exactly like these statues that have been falling out of the sky. Only alive.’

  ‘So you’re trying to tell me that Mrs Lugano and Mrs What’s-her-face at the cemetery were right about what they saw? These people were killed by some species of flying monkeys, or dogs, or dwarves? Or maybe by very homely angels? But whatever these creatures were, they turned into stone in mid-air and fell to the ground?’

  ‘Do you have another theory?’ Ed asked her. His face was completely expressionless. He didn’t even blink.

  ‘I don’t, as of yet,’ Jenna retorted. ‘But I never believed that Sherlock Holmes crap about “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”. So far as I’m concerned, if whatever you’re left with when you’ve eliminated the impossible is improbable, you need to go back to square one and re-examine the evidence.’

  ‘OK, keep your hair on. So far we haven’t had time to finish examining all of the evidence once yet, let alone twice. I was theorizing, that’s all. I was just telling you to trust your instincts, once in a while.’

  ‘Well, don’t. It gives me a migraine. I’ll see you down at Bartram’s Gardens in an hour.’

  A large crowd of sightseers had gathered around the wetlands in Bartram’s Gardens, in spite of the fact that it had started to rain again, quite heavily. The forty-five acre botanical gardens lay on the west side of the Schuylkill River, about five miles due south-west of the Columbia Bridge where Jimmy Hallam had been killed.

  Jenna loved Bartram’s Gardens and visited them whenever she had an afternoon to spare. They were so wild and filled with flowers that it was hard to believe that they were so close to the city center. John Bartram had built himself a handsome stone house here in the early part of the eighteenth century, and then set about planting the garden with every species of American wild flower he could find, as well as rare trees and shrubs. George III had eventually made him King’s Botanist for North America.

  Dan parked the car as close to the wetlands as he could, and he and Jenna climbed out. There were three police cars here already, as well as a tow truck. Their red flashing lights were reflected in the water, between the bulrushes and marsh grasses and yellow irises. On the far side of the river, there was a dramatic view of the city skyline, although the upper stories of the taller buildings were hidden in overhanging cloud.

  As Jenna and Dan ducked under the police tape, they were approached by a stocky black sergeant in a leather jacket. He was fortyish, with a bristly gray moustache, but he looked as if he worked out regularly, and maybe boxed, too, judging by the way his nose was bent sideways.

  ‘Well, well, Sergeant Dennis Williams,’ said Jenna. ‘Haven’t seen you in a coon’s age. How’s that wayward son of yours? What’s his name? Duane?’

  Sergeant Williams nodded. ‘You got a good memory, Detective. Yeah, Duane’s not so wayward these days. In fact he’s almost human. Surprising what a difference a couple of years can make.’

  ‘So what do we have here? A statue, in the water?’

  ‘That’s right. But nobody can work out how the hell it got here, because it wasn’t here last night, and the garden closes at five.’

  He led them down to the ver
y edge of the wetlands. About a hundred and fifty feet away, a white limestone statue lay on its side in the shallow water, half-hidden by the grass, and surrounded by orange hibiscus flowers, as if somebody had arranged them there as a tribute. Two police divers in yellow chest-high waders were trying to fasten canvas straps around it.

  ‘Here,’ said Sergeant Williams, and handed Jenna a pair of binoculars.

  She focused on the statue and she could see immediately that it bore a strong resemblance to the shattered statues that had landed next to the Convent of Divine Love and Woodlands Cemetery. Half of its head was submerged, but it was facing toward her, and she could see that it had knobbly horns and protuberant eyes and a wide, curved beak. A large wing rose out of its shoulders, carved in triangular sections like a dragon’s wing, rather than a bird’s wing. About a third of the wing had broken off and was lying in the grass beside it.

  The statue’s arms and legs were disproportionately long, with claws on both of them. Its body was almost human in shape, but it was very emaciated, with a clearly-defined ribcage and a swollen belly.

  Jenna passed the binoculars to Dan, so that he could take a look for himself.

  ‘Well?’ asked Sergeant Williams. ‘Any ideas what it’s supposed to be a statue of, or where it came from, or why anybody should want to dump it here in Bartram’s Gardens?’

  ‘Unh-hunh,’ Jenna admitted. ‘Not so far.’ The rain started to clatter down so hard that she put up her hood. ‘Who found it? Not that it makes too much difference.’

  ‘Volunteer gardener name of Andy Fisher. He says he was starting to rake out weeds and there it was. Frightened the crap out of him. That’s what he said, anyhow.’

  ‘Think he had anything to do with it?’

  ‘Nah. He’s not exactly the sharpest tool in the box, and if this was done as some kind of a practical joke, it was done by somebody who had brains. Like, you couldn’t have driven the statue out here in a truck, because the water’s too deep, and you couldn’t have brought it in from the river, even in a flat-bottomed boat, because there’s too much goddamned grass.’

  He looked around. ‘Must be connected to those other statues, don’t you think? They were dropped out of helicopters, weren’t they? Wouldn’t be surprised if this one was, too.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Jenna. ‘On the other hand, who knows? The media are all convinced that some maniac is flying round Philly in a helicopter, dropping his unwanted sculpture collection on to the heads of an unsuspecting populace. But we don’t have any evidence of that yet.’

  Sergeant Williams shook his head and smiled. ‘I always knew you had a reputation for being the world’s greatest skeptic, Detective. But explain to me how else does a statue drop out of the clear blue yonder, except if somebody took it up there in a chopper?’

  ‘God moves in mysterious ways, Sergeant.’

  ‘Sure. But half-ton statues don’t.’

  She hung around while the divers finished strapping up the statue and hooking it up to the tow truck. The rain died away, and a watery sun appeared through the clouds, but she was feeling shivery and hungry and bone-tired.

  She talked to Andy Fisher, the volunteer gardener who had discovered the statue lying in the water. He was about twenty-two, with a mop of sandy hair and a large nose and near-together eyes, like a shy woodland animal. He was wearing a blue waterproof storm coat that was much too big for him, which made him appear even more vulnerable.

  ‘I was clearing out the weeds in the channel and then I saw the wing sticking up. I went closer to see what it was and then I saw this real scary face looking up at me out of the water.’

  ‘But you realized it was only a statue?’

  Andy stared at her as if he wanted to say something, but didn’t know if she would think he was stupid.

  ‘What is it?’ she coaxed him.

  He puckered up his mouth and looked miserable.

  ‘Come on, Andy,’ she said. ‘I’m a police detective. I’ve heard everything, believe me.’

  ‘Well, I know it’s only a statue and it’s only made out of stone but when I first went up to it, its eyes were closed.’

  ‘Closed? You’re sure about that?’

  Andy nodded vigorously. ‘Its eyes were closed but when I went up to it and the water splashed against its face it opened them up and it stared at me. One of its eyes was above the water and the other eye was under the water. But it opened both eyes and it stared at me.’

  ‘Its eyes are still open now.’

  ‘I know they are, I know they are, but when I first went up to it they were closed. I swear on the Bible.’

  ‘OK. You saw what you saw.’

  ‘You don’t believe me. You think I’m making it up. You think I’m a retard.’

  ‘No, I don’t. Not for a moment. Like I said, you saw what you saw and that’s your evidence and I respect it. This happens with every single incident that I investigate. Different witnesses see totally different things, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re wrong, or that they’re challenged in any way.’

  Andy furiously scratched the back of his head as if he couldn’t decide whether or not to tell Jenna any more.

  ‘Please, Andy,’ Jenna encouraged him. ‘Every detail, every impression, everything helps. You may not realize it, but you could have seen something that explains everything that happened here. What this statue is, and how it got here.’

  Andy looked away, off toward the wild flower meadow, but it was obvious that he was concentrating all of his attention on what he was saying to Jenna. It was as if he were trying to be somebody else, describing what Andy had told him second-hand, but making sure that he described it very precisely.

  ‘It’s alive. It was alive, anyhow, when I first went up to it. Maybe it’s dead now. But when I first went up to it, it was alive. And I know what it is.’

  ‘You do?’

  Andy nodded, still not looking at her. ‘It’s a Spoogly.’

  Jenna had been about to say something, but now she was left with her mouth half-open. She hesitated for a moment, and then she said, ‘A Spoogly?’

  ‘That’s what they’re called. I don’t know how I know. I’ve had dreams about them ever since I was little – nightmares. But that’s what they are. That’s what they’re called. Spooglies.’

  ‘I see. Well . . . that sounds like a very apt description to me. I mean, that statue is pretty spoogly, isn’t it? Not the sort of sculpture you’d want in your back yard, really. Can you imagine looking out of your kitchen window every day and seeing that staring back at you?’

  ‘No. We live four floors up. All you can see out of our kitchen window is an air shaft.’

  ‘Sure. Of course. I only meant that by way of illustration.’

  Andy abruptly turned to face her again, but his near-together eyes still didn’t seem to be focused on her. ‘I’ve had dreams about them ever since I was little. Creatures that come flying through the night. Hundreds of them, all dark, like it’s an air raid. And they’re always screaming.’

  He let out a high, eerie howl just to make his point, and several of the police officers looked around to see where the noise was coming from.

  Jenna said, ‘You’ve had recurrent nightmares about creatures which look like that statue?’

  ‘It’s a Spoogly,’ Andy insisted. ‘It’s a Spoogly. I don’t know how I know it’s a Spoogly, but I do.’

  Jenna walked across to the tow truck, where the statue was gradually being dragged up the ramps at the back. Ed was prowling around, making sure that it wasn’t chipped or damaged. He was carrying the section of broken wing in his arms as possessively as if he had just won it in a prize draw.

  ‘Hey, careful!’ he shouted, as the statue bumped and scraped up the metal ramp. ‘Go easy, will you! That’s not just evidence, that’s a work of art!’

  ‘I guess it is a work of art, when you come to think of it,’ said Jenna, watching the crime scene specialists unbuckle the canvas webbing and strap the st
atue securely into place on the back of the tow truck. ‘Do you think it’s worth anything?’

  Ed shook his head. ‘Hard to say without carbon dating it and going through some catalogs. But it looks medieval to me. Maybe fourteenth or fifteenth century. Beautifully carved. I mean that’s craftsmanship with a capital K. You do know what it is, don’t you?’

  ‘Some kind of demon, I guess.’

  ‘Well, yes, but look at the mouth. It’s a very specific kind of a demon. A gargoyle. They used to put them on the sides of churches and other buildings to act as waterspouts. I’d say it was German or Polish. Of course all the boundaries were different in those days, so you could be talking about Prussian or Lithuanian.’

  ‘Why, Ed! I didn’t realize you were such a culture vulture!’

  ‘Not really. My old man was a stonemason and he used to carve monuments for Bertolini’s discount headstones up on Torredale Avenue. We had books and books at home, full of pictures of sculptures, which he used for reference. When I was a kid I was always looking through them for sculptures of naked women.’

  ‘At last. The truth about Ed Freiburg’s degenerate boyhood.’

  ‘Get out of here, Jenna. I’ll call you later when I have some results.’

  The tow truck started up and Jenna and Ed had to step back out of its way. As it drove past them, only a few feet away, Jenna saw to her shock that the gargoyle had its eyes shut, as if it were asleep.

  She looked quickly across at Andy Fisher, who was standing on the opposite side of the parking lot. It’s alive, Andy had told her. It’s a Spoogly.

  She thought about going over and telling him that she had seen the statue’s eyelids closed, but he turned his back and walked off into the crowd of sightseers. She tried to see where he had gone, but he had completely melted away.

  ‘Something wrong?’ Ed asked her.

  ‘No, nothing. But that theory of yours. Maybe it’s not so improbable after all.’

  EIGHTEEN

  Thursday, 7:49 p.m.

  Doctor Berman came into his room to find Nathan flexing the fingers of his left hand like a pianist preparing to play Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5.