Meds

by Amy Cross

  “It's necessary,” she said firmly. “Like I said, he's a tool. He's dying anyway, he might as well be useful.”

  “And what about her?” Elly asked, turning to look toward the ambulance, where Rachel was still tied to the other trolley. “Why did you bring her with us?”

  “Another tool,” Kirsten said with a smile. “Once I make contact with the voice, I'll need some way to keep it in line. I'm not interested in being just another rag doll that gets tossed around by this thing, I want to be its equal at least, maybe even more. I'm not the first person who ever tried to do something like this, but I will be the first who succeeds.” She turned back to Lacy. “And you will help me talk to the voice, whether you like it or not. That's the only goddamn reason you're still alive.”

  “I think Rachel's in pain,” Elly muttered, climbing into the back of the ambulance as Rachel's body twitched on the trolley. “She needs constant treatment, you can't just bring her out here like this.”

  “The poor thing is in agony,” Kirsten replied, making her way over to the ambulance. “I brought the wretch along because I have a keen eye for irony. After all, Doctor Carmichael's work shouldn't go unrewarded.”

  “Doctor Carmichael?”

  “I needed him to turn his ideas into a prototype.” She slipped the silver capsule from her pocket. “That's why I funded him for so long.”

  “Where is he?” Elly asked, turning to her.

  Kirsten smiled.

  “Where is he?” Elly asked again. “Don't tell me you don't know, because I know you do. Where is Doctor Carmichael?”

  “He's right next to you.”

  Turning, Elly looked around, but she saw no-one else in the ambulance.

  “Not like that, silly,” Kirsten continued with a grin. “You're touching him, for God's sake.”

  Looking down, Elly looked at her right hand, which was resting on Rachel's shoulder.

  “This,” Kirsten added, reaching under the trolley and taking out a metal tube, “is a cortex extender. It's a remarkable device, really, and one of its many uses is as a means for a human brain to be transferred from one body to another. In this instance, I thought Doctor Carmichael might like to know what Rachel had been going through and experience his work first-hand. After all, he'd spent several months subjecting to her agonizing pain as part of his experiments.” She smiled as she looked down at Rachel's bandaged face. “I removed Rachel's brain a few nights ago. Her mind was gone anyway, and she deserved peace. Believe it or not, she thanked me when I told her what I was going to do. Then I put Jonathan's brain in her body, and now here he is, ready to witness the true application of his technology. When Rachel supposedly attacked you in the office the other night, Elly, it was really Jonathan Carmichael in her body, trying to warn you.”

  Shaking her head, Elly stepped back, horrified by the idea.

  “Didn't you notice the extra bandages around the neck area?” Kirsten asked. “Anyone who has undergone such a procedure has a small scar.” She turned her head slightly, revealing the scar on her own neck. “My old body, for example, was destroyed in a fire here at Lakehurst a few years ago. Fortunately, I was able to transfer my brain into the body of Nurse Hazel Perry. The funny thing is, as this new body began to heal from its horrific injuries, it began to resemble my original body more and more. It's almost as if my brain was telling my new body how to look.”

  “That's insane!” Elly replied. “You can't move a brain from one body to another!”

  “Oh,” Kirsten said, holding up the silver capsule, “you'd be surprised what kind of device gets developed on the sidelines, away from prying eyes.”

  Elly shook her head. “You're lying. You have to be lying!”

  “This is the control for the device Doctor Carmichael was working on,” Kirsten continued. “It allows the body's pain receptors to be switched on and off at will, provided it's synced to a twin device. I had to make a couple of modifications, but it's ready now.” Rolling Rachel's sleeve up, she pulled at some stitches in the skin and then slipped her fingers inside. A moment later, she pulled out another pin, and Rachel's body shuddered. “With one of these devices, there's no need to waste time deciding how to inflict pain. You can simply decide how much, and for how long. I funded Carmichael's work because I knew that it was key to my own needs. I realized long ago that pain is the greatest way to control another living creature, although the larger and more powerful the creature, the more pain you need to deliver. With this device, I can cripple anything I encounter, even here at Lakehurst.”

  With tears in her eyes, Elly shook her head, as if she couldn't bring herself to believe what was happening.

  “It's all true,” Kirsten replied, climbing down from the ambulance and looking across the grass. “Now there's just one more thing to do. I need to work out exactly how to get down there.”

  “Down where?” Elly asked.

  “Where do you think? To the chamber beneath our feet. After all, that's where the voice is coming from.” She paused, before turning to Elly. “Doctor Rudolf Langheim was wrong about a lot of things, but his errors at least helped light the path for those of us who follow. Thanks to him, I'm finally going to come face to face with the true evil of Lakehurst. And you, Elly, are going to help me.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  1946

  “Look at the four men in this photograph,” Captain Donovan said, keeping his eyes fixed on the thin, calm man on the other side of the desk in the small interrogation room. “On the left, that's Heinrich Gottenlieb. He was hanged five days ago for his war crimes.”

  He waited for a reply, but Rudolf Langheim simply stared at the photo with the same calm expression he'd maintained throughout his trial and sentencing. Even now, so close to his execution, he refused to break.

  “And next to him,” Donovan continued, “is Heinz Harald Luren. He was also hanged five days ago, for his part in the experiments that were conducted at Auschwitz. Next to him, we have Andre Schlesser, who was hanged six months ago for his role as one of Hitler's leading bio-engineers. And finally, on the right of the picture, we have you, Doctor Rudolf Langheim.”

  He paused.

  “So tell me, Doctor Langheim, why you shouldn't join your former colleagues and take a trip to the gallows. You must have known this day was coming once we picked you up near Altensalzkoth. You've already been tried and convicted, the sentence has been handed down. A noose is waiting for you in the next room, but we always like to offer one final way out for men such as yourself. Gottenlieb, Luren and Schlesser turned us down and ended up dead. You still have a chance to make a smarter choice.”

  “And betray my country?” Langheim asked. “I think not.”

  “Your country is dust,” Donovan said firmly. “Anyway, you don't give a damn about countries. There's not an ounce of patriotism in your soul.”

  Finally, a faint smile crossed Langheim's lips. “Patriotism is for the stupid,” he sneered. “The blind, the weak. That flag you wear on your uniform, Captain Donovan, is meaningless.”

  “It means something to me.”

  “Then you're more of a fool than you appear.”

  “In America,” Donovan continued, choosing to ignore the attempt at provocation, “we have facilities that'd blow your goddamn Nazi mind. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not offering you the chance to come and work for us out of some misplaced respect for your work. I've seen some of the specimens you tortured, I know you're a monster. The thing is, my superiors happen to believe that monsters can be made useful if they just apply themselves in a different direction. You can never redeem yourself, Doctor Langheim, but you can at least accept the offer of the United States government and try working on projects that actually benefit mankind.”

  “I doubt you have anything to offer me.”

  “The world would still believe that you died,” Donovan told him. “You'd be taken to America in secret. There'd be no fame or glory for you, just the facilities and support to continue your work. Th
at's what really matters to a man like you, isn't it? I know you didn't torture those people in your lab because you enjoyed it, you did it because it was the only way to get your work done. There'll be no torture if you come and work for us, but you'll have all the resources you could possibly want.” He paused, before leaning back in his chair. After a moment, he turned to the guard at the door and clicked his fingers. The guard, in turn, opened the door, revealing a room beyond with a simple noose handing in front of the window. “Your choice,” Donovan continued, “but you don't have long to decide.”

  Langheim stared at the noose for a moment, before turning back to face him.

  “Do you know,” the German said finally, “how much evil there is in the world?”

  “There's a lot less now all the Nazi filth is being wiped away,” Donovan replied.

  “No,” Langheim said with a faint smile, “that simply isn't true. There is no more now than there was a year ago, and no less than there was when this pointless war began. There is no more and no less than there was one hundred years ago, or one thousand years ago, or back in the time of Jesus Christ. There is no more and no less than there will be one hundred years from today, or one million. Evil, like energy, cannot be created or destroyed. It merely exists and finds different ways to be seen.”

  “Don't go getting all mystical on me,” Donovan muttered. “I just had a heavy lunch.”

  “Like the weather,” Langheim continued, “evil drifts across the planet. Most of the time, it's scattered far and wide, like little clouds each on their own journey. A touch of evil might settle one day in a particular town, maybe stay there long enough to make a man murder his wife, and then float off to some other place.” He paused. “Sometimes, however, these little clouds happen to clump together, and then you get a storm of evil. There have been several such storms in the history of mankind, Mr. Donovan. Every time a great atrocity is committed, one can detect certain indicators that prove one of these storms has occurred. This, in fact, has been the primary subject of my experiments.”

  Donovan smiled. He clearly wanted to dismiss Langheim's claims, but at the same time he was also interested. From looking through piles of notebooks during the trial, he knew that Langheim was no fool.

  “Haven't you ever wondered,” Langheim continued, “how millions of ordinary people could allow such great evil to take place in their homeland? How good men, ordinary men, could suddenly go to work guarding the gates of the most hideous factories and death camps in the world?” He paused. “You're right, Mr. Donovan, I did run an experimentation facility at one of the camps. I don't know how many people died in that place, suffering horrific pain as they were subjected to tests no sane man could imagine, but the truth is, I wasn't studying those wretched souls, I was studying the members of my own staff. When I told one of my fellow doctors to boil a man alive, I wasn't testing to see what would happen to the victim. I was testing to see if my colleague would carry out that order. Not once did any of them refuse. And those who you do not execute, will go back to their ordinary lives, and this period of evil will pass. The cloud will move on.”

  “So you're blaming all the evil of Nazi Germany on some kind of fancy weather, huh?” Donovan rolled his eyes. “Nice try, but you don't get to cleanse your conscience that easily.”

  “I'm not trying to excuse the actions of myself or my colleagues,” Langheim replied. “Merely explain them. Men are far less in control of their actions than they would like to think. Most men, anyway. You and me, Mr. Donovan, are alike in that we are both more aware of these things. There has been a great concentration of evil in this part of the world lately, and now it is dispersing, but it will simply move elsewhere.” He paused. “There is already another concentration building in the world. I have developed certain methods of detecting evil. I use radio waves to pick up on the tell-tale signs, and I believe there is a great concentration of evil already building far from here. In the United States, as it happens.”

  “Do you seriously expect me to believe this?”

  “I will accept your offer to travel to America,” Langheim continued, “on the condition that you let me continue this work. If I am wrong, nothing will come of it. But if I am right, I will develop machines that will not only allow mankind to recognize the patterns of evil in the world, but we will also be able to control evil, to use it, to harness its power for whatever purpose we see fit.” He glanced at the noose for a moment, before turning back to Donovan. “I'm not the only person who has begun to investigate this phenomenon, but my work is more advanced than the others. Turn me down and hang me, and you risk having these discoveries fall into hands other than your own. The Russians, for example. I'm sure you can understand why, even though the odds of success might seem small, it would be good to have me on your side.”

  “You sound like a madman,” Donovan told him.

  “There are millions of madmen in the world,” Langheim replied. “Very occasionally, one of them turns out to be a genius.”

  Donovan stared at him for a moment. “Then I guess we have a deal.” He signaled the guard, who closed the door, cutting off the view of the noose. “Doctor Langheim, I don't know whether I want you to be right or wrong about all of this, but I can promise you that I'll be keeping a close eye on your work. One way or another, I want to know.”

  “I will need to take certain equipment with me from my lab,” Langheim replied. “Assuming that you haven't destroyed it all in a fit of righteous pique.”

  “Your lab is secure. Anything you want will be provided for you and taken with you to America.” Getting to his feet, he opened the other door and gestured for Langheim to follow. “Come on, we need to start processing you. Uncle Sam doesn't hang about with these things, you'll be on a flight to England tonight and then tomorrow you'll set sail for New York. Meanwhile, we'll run a story in the papers saying you were executed, or maybe we'll claim you escaped and went off to somewhere in South America. People will believe whatever we tell them.”

  Following Donovan out into the corridor, Langheim held up his handcuffed wrists and waited while he was freed. Rubbing his wrists, he smiled as he heard someone walking along the corridor, and he turned just in time to see a woman being escorted by two American guards. A moment later, the woman was shoved roughly into a nearby room, and the door was slammed shut as she shouted something in German.

  “You know her?” Donovan asked, turning to Langheim. “She was one of your assistants in the camps, I believe.”

  “One of my assistants?” Langheim chuckled at the idea. “Mary Langheim is my wife, Mr. Donovan, and if you think I have a talent for cruelty, you should see her work. Tell me, are you going to offer her a deal too?”

  “Maybe. We need to work out if she's valuable first. Why, do you want her to go to American with you?”

  Langheim paused. “On the contrary,” he said finally. “I demand to watch her hang before I leave.”

  ***

  “She doesn't say much, does she?” Donovan muttered a few minutes later, as he and Langheim stood smoking cigarettes while they watched Mary being led up to the noose. “Was she always like this?”

  Langheim smiled, his eyes fixed on his wife's calm face. “No,” he said finally. “No, she can shout and scream and rant with the best of them.”

  “Mainly in the sack, huh?”

  “I'm sure I don't know what you mean.”

  One of the guards took hold of the noose and placed it around Mary's neck.

  “Mary Corinne Langheim,” Donovan said, stepping toward the makeshift stage that had been erected for the latest batch of executions, “in accordance with judicial decree 517 of the eighth court, you are hereby to be hanged by the neck until you are dead. This sentence has been handed down due to your involvement in experiments and killings at several death camps over the past eight year. Before the execution is carried out, is there anything you wish to say? Your words will be recorded and will be included in documents relating to your case.”


  “She won't beg for your mercy,” Langheim said with a smile. “Mary was a member of the innermost Volkisch group, she was a founding member of the Ahnernerbe team in Berlin. She was even an unofficial member of the great expedition to Tibet. To this day, she has still never told me the full story of what happened during the Sikkim incident, but I have no doubt that it bolstered her explorations of the paranormal. Childish rubbish, of course, although occasionally she and her colleagues strayed into more intellectually stimulating areas.”

  “Go to hell,” Mary sneered.

  “On her birthday,” Langheim continued, turning to Donovan, “she would receive a card and flowers from Hitler himself.”

  “What's wrong?” Mary asked. “Jealous?”

  “Of a woman with a noose around her neck?” Langheim laughed. “Hardly, my dear. Your had a great mind once, that's why I married you, but you allowed yourself to be seduced by foolish ideas. Perhaps if the Fuhrer had spent more time listening to his tacticians and less time reading your foolish reports into the occult and supernatural, the war would have ended very differently. Now you must pay for your idiocy, while I begin a new life with my American friends.” He laughed again. “God bless America, as they say.”

  “Traitor!” she shouted.

  “Calm yourself. I merely go where the work takes me.”

  Mary took a step forward, but the noose pulled on her neck and one of the guards grabbed her arm.

  “You're so sure of yourself,” she snarled, her eyes filled with disgust as she watched her husband. “You think you have an answer for everything, but you're wrong.” She paused. “Fine. Go to America. Carry out your experiments, pursue your own foolish ideas, but we'll see who's right in the long run. I promise you one thing, though. One day I will find a way back from the wastelands of death, and I will take the greatest prize from you. I've seen the way you work, Rudolf, and I know that even if you somehow stumble close to the truth, your arrogance will hold you back. You will never -”