by Nick Keller
“I’m very sorry, son, but I got called away for work. I’m actually at the airport. There’s this thing in Boca Raton, and they need me there. Came up suddenly.”
“Boca wha?” William said, eyes wide staring at the cage.
“Boca Raton. It’s in Florida. Not important. Anyway, they need me there tomorrow, so I fly out today. You know how it is at my job. So, I talked to your mom about it already. She left some money and a note for diner. Maybe you could order pizza or something.”
“Oh, uh—okay.”
“Needless to say, I’m not going to be able to pick you up from school.”
“Oh, uh-huh, that’s okay.”
“What about your buddy Milo. Can he drive you again?”
“No—no, I’ll walk.”
“Awe, son.”
“No, I’ll walk. It’s okay.”
“Well, okay, bud. What’s got you staying late? Another debate coming up?”
“Uh, no—” The mouse moved in quick jerky motions. It climbed the rock until it sat directly over Theraphosa’s head, sniffed, jerked into a tiny circle, then moved back to the loess on the other side. William’s pulse spiked. The dark shape inside the cave began slowly unfolding, its legs opening tactically, poising itself. “I got this other thing,” he said like a hypnotic, with slow, long words.
“Other thing. Sounds intriguing. Look, I gotta go, son, they’re calling my flight.”
“Okay, dad.”
“I’ll be back Friday in time for the game.”
Theraphosa emerged from its dim confines putting light across its forward legs. William could hear the pulse register in his ears overpowering his dad’s voice. “Okay,” William responded through held breath. The mouse moved back toward the cave entrance, jerking, stopping, jerking, stopping.
“We’ll catch up then, okay?”
The mouse was so close. Just inches away.
“Uh-huh.” William nodded in response to his dad, but he couldn’t speak. He licked his lips with a dry, nervous tongue, eyes watering, refusing to blink.
“Love you, son. Talk soon.”
And Whap!
Theraphosa struck out. William could feel its energy. It was a physical sensation. It made him shudder, nearly drop the phone. The spider manipulated the mouse into a contorted position, and held it captive to its own death. Its chelicerae sank down into the mouse’s flanks. It made William feel faint. He swooned. No matter how much the mouse kicked, no matter how gruesomely it convulsed, no matter how powerfully it willed itself to live, its much greater adversary had no sense of empathy. Theraphosa was the perfect killer.
William heard himself whisper, “Love you, too, dad. Bye.”
30
Alive
His eyes flew open and he pulled an enormous, desperate breath.
The warehouse. The steel table. The leather straps. He was back.
Graves smiled hugely down at him distorting the shapes of his face. “Thank God,” he said, then turned away connecting wires to the EKG machine. It started beeping. “There, you’re hooked up now. Your signs will normalize. Yes, you’re healthy.”
“You,” William stretched his fingers through the restraints, reaching for him violently but impotently, teeth clenched, anger seething from him. He melted back helpless to defeat his situation. “You killed me.”
Graves said through that low, drawn-up voice, “I gave you life. I revived you, brought you back.”
William dissolved, his strength completely sapped. He watched Graves take an IV syringe attached to a clear plastic bag hanging on an IV stand and swath William’s arm with an alcohol swab. William jerked away with a growl. “Now, now,” Graves said in a soothing voice. “This won’t hurt, I promise.” He positioned the needle over William’s antecubital vein compressing his skin with a thumb to feel for springiness. “You have wonderful veins, did you know? Healthy males are the easiest to stick. You’re quite a specimen. Must do a lot of cardiovascular exercising, don’t you?”
“You’re sick!” William blared, jerking his arm again.
Graves held the needle up between thumb and forefinger. “If I miss, I’ll have to do it again. Please be still.”
“What is it?” William cried out.
Graves assured him, “Nutrient. You must stay healthy, yes healthy indeed. I don’t want you getting ill or dehydrating.”
William squinted at him, angrily but curiously.
Graves inserted the needle and let the IV feeder begin its drip. “There now, see? Didn’t hurt at all.”
“Little prick,” William said.
Graves smiled at him bunching the tumors on his face into painful looking whorls of flesh. “That’s funny.”
31
Jacky Starts To Look
The LinkTech security service window still showed no messages. Jacky’s inbox was still empty. No word from Professor Erter. He screwed his face up. This was weird.
He dialed the number to the temp phone and waited. The standard no-call tone whistled in his ear. It was a dead battery.
Okay, now Jacky was getting concerned.
He checked the information he’d grabbed off the temp phone and brought up his Priv-ware app. It was a GPS locator. If he could find the phone, he could find Professor Erter. The GPS reader jumped onto his screen and he scoffed at it. No signal location.
Even a dead phone battery would show a location. Jacky sat back in his chair, thinking. Even if Professor had been arrested, the GPS signal would indicate the police station. Likewise, if he was at the hospital, it would show that. But there was no signal at all. Someone had stomped it with a boot or thrown it into a lake.
Prof was in trouble. This went beyond concern. Jacky was now worried.
For all his data scramblers, network viruses, firewall breakers and the like, he would be no good in a fist fight if Professor Erter were in true danger. He needed help. He needed some good old-fashioned street muscle. And who in the world would help an underground nerd find a hopeless head case?
What to do, who to call?
Bernie stood in the corner of his little office and watched with his arms crossed. The network specialist he’d hired to install his business phone system, a big sweaty fat guy, wormed back out from under the office desk and groaned as he stood back up. He’d been under there jimmying the wall plug to the office phones. He’d spent half the morning setting up all the necessary landline features including an alert mode, call referencing and voice mail. Now, the phone in the front office would light up when someone called in, even put clients on hold and switch lines at the touch of a button.
Bernie wore his characteristic scowl. Once the installer was done, the guy picked up the receiver, listened with a satisfied grunt, hung back up and rubbed his hands together. “All done,” he said. He swiped an invoice clipboard up and said, “Sign your John Doe right here, and I’ll be out of your hair.”
Bernie signed and handed it back. A light blinked red on his phone. “What’s that?” he said.
The guy looked over and said, “Heh—already got some business, mister. That’s your voice mail. Someone probably called earlier and it went straight to your service. Here, just dial two-two-two to get your messages.”
Bernie grunted his okay.
The guy said, “You’ll have to set up the voice greeting. Just follow the steps on the website. It’ll tell you what you need to know.”
“Website,” Bernie said. “Right.”
“Yep. Have a good day.” The guy collected his papers and a supplies box and stepped out.
Bernie looked around. Dobbs Investigative Services (or whatever he was going to call it) was coming together nicely. All that was left to do now was advertise.
He swiped the phone up out of its cradle and punched two-two-two. The service clicked to his voicemail inbox with an automated, “You have one message. Message number one at ten fifteen p.m.” Last night.
It clicked over and began the recording. Bernie heard the caller’s voice, wondering who
the hell it was. They sounded young, and a little stupid.
“Uh—Mister Bernie? Hi, this is, you might remember, this is Jacky. Jacky Lee. Jacky Lee Hobar—remember me? It’s been a while.”
Oh, Jesus Christ!
“Hey, so I was hoping we could, oh I don’t know. There’s this thing, and, well maybe I thought we could meet. By the way, congrats, man! Are you a Private Eye? Dude, that’s so cool.”
Bernie started to hang up angrily. He’d never wanted to hear that little puke’s jittery voice ever again. But he stopped, holding the phone in a tight grip. There were too many memories attached to that goddamn kid to just hang up. They teased his need to know more. He brought the phone back up to his ear and listened.
“You wouldn’t believe how I found your listing. I mean, I know you’re not open for business yet, but I found you through—oh, never mind. It’s complicated. Anyway, I have money, so you can call me back at …” yadda yadda yadda. “Man I—I might need your help, Mister Bernie. It’s about Professor Erter. There might be trouble.”
That’s when Bernie slammed the phone down in its cradle and growled, “No fucking way.”
32
Toxicity
Graves had checked the nutrient bag meticulously as the bladder depleted over the last day or so, deflating like a balloon. When the thing was empty, he pulled another one from a medical case and replaced it inserting William’s feed tube into the new bag.
William had spent every moment contemplating his situation. There was a way to escape. There was always a way. But no solution had presented itself. He’d tried slipping his wrists free, but the leather bands were too tight. They cut off his blood flow. He’d even attempted articulating his fingers in painful ways to toy with the little key lock securing the tongue and buckles of each strap, but he couldn’t acquire the necessary angles. Dislocating a thumb or a wrist, even a shoulder, had all occurred to him, but in the end, he couldn’t guarantee escape.
He was helpless.
Graves was over by his operation desk arranging and rearranging his supplies meticulously. His snorting and growling had begun an hour ago, and had only worsened. Finally, he fed himself an injection of his homemade serum and took a breath. A moment later, words fluttered over to William. “I’ve never loved a woman. Have you ever loved a woman?”
William put his gaze skyward refusing to answer. He would not speak to his own killer while Ruthi Taylor danced beautifully through his mind. It was insulting.
Graves said, “How can a man live and die and never love?” He craned around to look over his shoulder. “So, have you?”
William wanted to ignore him. He needed to. But he found no reason to infuriate his captor, like before. “Yes,” he said with a sneer.
“You have?” Graves said.
“I still love her.” He hoped his words, as benign as they were, cut the bastard.
“She’s out there, in the world?”
William turned his head away, whispered, “No.”
“She’s dead,” Graves assumed. “And yet you still love her.”
“Yes.”
“They’re not mutually exclusive, love and death.”
William said regrettably, “No, they’re not.”
Graves swiveled on his stool to face him directly. “What about love and monsters?”
William’s thoughts went to his father. A man. A monster. Mutually exclusive? He said, “No.”
Graves tickled his tumors with his fingertips and said, “If only that were so.” Sadness lined his words. “No one would ever love what I am.”
William lifted his head and said, “Rheumatic mitosis?”
“You know your terminology well, Mr. Erter. The cancer sits behind my eyes. As you pointed out, it’s the pituitary gland, nestled warmly against my brain stem, the engine for the body’s chemical train. Everything starts at the pituitary. It’s the first domino, you might say. Once it falls, well.” He sighed. “Do you know what a Rube Goldberg is?”
William nodded, yes.
“Everything leads to everything else. Such calamity, but with a single objective. Sprinkle just a dust mote of cancer into the machine, and the Rube Goldberg exacts all kinds of nasty little outcomes. Massive serositis. Nephrotic syndrome. A whole family tree of rheumatic diseases. And, here’s the fun part—psychosomatic ones, too. Polarisms and depressions, disorders and personalities. I’m ugly. And I’m crazy. Now I’m dying. You see, that’s the single objective the Rube Goldberg is achieving: Me, on that table. And now, there’s no one to love me.”
William found himself looking at the man sadly. Graves had been a man once. Now he was truly a monster in every way. Even his brain was twisting a little more day by day. William said, “Frankenstein’s monster.”
Graves cracked a sad grin at him and said, “No, William. I’m not patched together like Frankenstein’s monster. No—I’m afraid I’m actually splitting apart. I’m more like Dr. Jekyll and ...” he looked away suddenly and said, “What’s his name?”
“Mr. Hyde,” William said.
Graves thrust a finger at him declaring, “Yes. Mr. Hyde.”
William shook his head and whispered, “Frankenstein was the one that wanted to be loved.”
Graves gave him a forlorn look, one eye glistening with tears, the other obstructed by a family of tumors forcing it half closed. William muttered, “So, is that why you’re—” A sudden, excruciating pain in his abdomen clenched against him, made him go—Guh! Then it was gone just as quickly. He’d had severe food poisoning once, many years ago. The ensuing twelve hours of vomiting and puking had begun very similarly—with a spasm in the gut. But this wasn’t that. This was something else.
Graves looked at him with a benign expression, as if he hadn’t noticed anything. He just stared at him awaiting further conversation.
William waited, breathless. Something wasn’t right. Something was very, very—
Guh!
Another blast of pain to his gut racked his body. It held him longer this time feeling like some devil’s hands were kneading his intestines like a few pounds of raw dough. He couldn’t breathe, just clenched his teeth trying to resist. Then the pain was gone again making him gasp. He shot a frantic look toward the nutrient bag that Graves had replaced. But replaced with what?
“What did you give me?” he shouted.
“Is it happening? Can you feel it?” Graves said in that mindless monotone.
Another blast of pain. William groaned, “What. Is. It?”
“Nothing that can’t be fixed, my friend,” Graves said, standing up and moving to his bed. He flipped on the surgical light and beamed it down over William’s face. Then he turned on the digital camera on its overhead crane arm, started adjusting its angle through the viewfinder. He was trying to frame William just perfectly, from the chest up. Wanted to capture his death just right.
William writhed more out of anger than fear. It did no good, only caused more pain. Obviously, there was poison in the bag and it was being administered into his open vein a drip at a time. He froze, feeling the grip of panic take hold. “What kind of poison is it, Graves?” he demanded.
Graves only gave him a grin that was half sympathy, half apathy.
William closed his eyes. He knew poisons. He knew their symptoms. This one started with muscle spasms. That hardly narrowed it down. Most poisons started with muscle spasms, except for certain inhalants like mustard or nitrogen compounds. No, this was different. Arsenic, maybe, or cyanide.
There was sudden numbness in his fingers. He looked down trying to gaze at his extremities. Now his arms were going numb. That implied irregularities in his heart muscle. He sensed through his panic trying to focus on his pulse. He couldn’t sense a heartbeat. It was either too high, or too low, he couldn’t tell. This was possibly a botulism drip.
Next was dizziness that deepened his sense of panic. His chest constricted. He couldn’t pull a breath. He wheezed and gasped, fighting against the inevitable. Nausea struck him
. He felt his neck swell.
Oh God.
Dollops of foam began to rise up into his mouth.
I know what this is.
He felt everything start to fade.
Potassium Chloride.
Convulsions took him. Everything constricted—muscle, tendon, connective tissue. Everything flexed against each other. He felt his bones bend under the pressure. His body jerked and writhed. He was convulsing to death. He couldn’t breathe. There was agony everywhere. It deepened. Worsened. Grew to a zenith. There was a horrible pop and everything released. Then he died.
33
Gamma Oscillations
William always felt strangely at home in the high school library. This was where he was comfortable. This was where he could be alone, warmed by the dusty nature of thick, hardbound manuals that no one had ever read. Despite the fact that the index system of science and study had reached back into history for millennia informing ancient, brilliant minds of a future world, it seemed like virgin territory whispering to him.
He ran his finger along the spines looking for the right index numbers. Found them. He snagged a huge resource book and cradled it in one arm flipping through the pages with the other, eyes glowing.
Current Crime: Public Record. Published, 1998.
William walked the book over to DeAnna who was sitting at a computer library clicking and typing away. Her hair was a dark peachy color, and it fell over one shoulder as she leaned slightly forward. She chewed on the end of a pen. He stood at her side and said, “Found it.”
She looked up and gave him a tempestuous look. “Index books, Willy?”
“Yeah. Research.”
She snorted. “Don’t you know, there’s this really cool new toy called the web? It’s faster,” her eyes drifted to the huge index book and she chuckled, “and it’s lighter.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he chided. “I’ll be at the table doing some, you know,” and he over-enunciated the word, “reading.”