“You can’t help him escape?”
Escape?
Evade the authorities?
Now who’s crazy?
Pauly gets hauled in every so often for his own good.
Yeah, it’s not like they lock him up and throw away the key.
It’s more like a “catch-and-release” program.
He’ll get deloused. A warm bed. Three squares. Medical attention.
They won’t hurt ‘im.
They like Pauly!
Pauly’s a sweetie!
He’s kind of a celebrity.
Or we are.
Yeah. We like to chat up the docs and they get all excited and write papers on multiple personality disorder.
Haven’t you been paying attention? That’s so out of fashion. It’s DID, now.
DID?
Yeah. Dissociative . . .
Disassociative Identity Disorder.
That’s it.
I thought we were multiple personality manifestations?
We are. It’s just that they have different words for it, now.
What difference does it make?
Well, go back a few hundred years and say Pauly’s possessed, instead. See what kind of difference that makes.
“So, you guys are ghosts, not demons?”
What’s in a name?
Add up some of the stuff my country ordered me to do in a buffalo pasture half a world away . . . well . . . maybe the demon gig ain’t so diff.
Hey, you follow orders—
Ours not to question why, ours but to do and di—
Put a sock in it, O’Rourke. All the crap the brass told us to do didn’t make no goddam difference to whether good little American boys and girls grew up quoting Chairman Mao. You wanna give the Nazi bastards running the ovens at Auschwitz a pass because they were just following orders?
Why not? It’s all just a cosmic circle-jerk anyway. We spend five decades fighting the Communists only to elect ‘em to office and appoint ‘em to the bench once the Evil Empire is finally brought to its knees. You can die for that flag, G.I. Joe, but your kids aren’t allowed to pledge allegiance to it any more.
Not under God at any rate.
Hey, don’t get me started on God!
What’s your kick? God didn’t command you to collect Gook ears and make necklaces.
I’m talking about the bigger picture, asswipe. Man’s inhumanity to man.
Free will, baby.
Free will’s got nothing to do with the Service.
Yeah? Well, neither does God.
Trouble is you’re still looking for order in the universe. It’s chaos theory all the way, Cappy.
“Are you sure,” I asked, “that Pauly’s the crazy one and you all are just along for the ride?”
There was a cop car up ahead and one of New York’s Finest was exiting the passenger side.
What’s this guy thinking? He’s going to bring Pauly down bare-handed?
Yeah, a net or a beanbag gun would be a good idea. It took four guys the last time.
And we don’t want to hurt nobody.
Or get Pauly hurt.
Better start steering or we’re in for another verse of Sgt. Pepper-spray’s Lonely Hearts Club Banned.
“Steering?”
Yeah. We can, you know.
Sometimes we have to.
Pauly don’t always make the best choices when it comes to his own self-interests.
“Good thing he’s got you guys on board to look after him.”
Hey, if there’s one thing they teach you in the service, it’s you always got your buddy’s back.
I think the new guy is being ironical.
Yeah? I thought he was one of us.
You mean as in “military” or as in “dead-and-gone?"
Military, natch. We’re all D and G in here.
I’m not so sure, Gunny. This guy’s still plugged into something.
What?
Sure as shit! What is he? Wired?
Maybe he ain’t dead.
Yeah? And maybe he ain’t human, neither.
“Hold on, boys. It’s just the difference between you upgrading to dish while I’m still stuck with cable.”
Maybe. And just maybe you’re the next upgrade to the Devil’s Armor—a stealth Proud Mary that can get under the skin and do its shredding from the inside.
Only you ain’t dealing with no confused, newly dead civilian who’s still calling out for his mama.
Naw.
The U.S. military taught us twenty-seven different ways to kill with our bare hands—
. . . they only showed me fifteen . . .
—and we faced scarier things than you before we died!
As well as after!
The darkness inside Pauly’s head began to thicken and grow close with menace.
“Hold on, fellas. No need to go all Sergeant Fury and His Howling Commandos. I’m just a footloose guy on the astral plane trying to get back to my body before someone decides to pull the life-support plug at the hospital.”
What’s an astro-plane? Sounds like some kind of Russian space vehicle.
Body, huh? What hospital?
“I don’t know. They hauled it off in an ambulance and I haven’t seen it since. I just figured out I’ve got a lifeline I can follow a few hours ago. That was after the Threshers showed up and complicated everything.”
Threshers?
“Proud Marys.”
And I ended up repeating the story of my presumed demise and subsequent scavenger hunt for my mortal remains.
Sounds like a pretty tall tale to me, Maggot: vampire ghosts and intelligent swamp gas and such.
“Oh yeah. And six disembodied military vets riding around in the skull of a Section Eight AWOL is so SOP.”
He’s got a point, Sarge.
And a new mission would be a nice change of pace.
Yeah, running evasion maneuvers with the NYPD and playing PSY-OPS over at Bellevue gets old after awhile.
And even if an actual extraction or retrieval is out of the question for Pauly, we could still steer him enough to follow the cord and get you a little closer to the target.
Yeah, if you’re telling the truth, it could be kind of interesting to see.
And, if you’re not, it ain’t gonna be pretty.
“I know. You know twenty-seven ways to kill with your bare hands.”
Is he being ironical, again? That sounded like he was being ironical.
* * *
Now it was a white-knuckle combination chase, game of hide-and-go-seek, and treasure hunt as Pauly’s barracks’ buddies steered him to follow the now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t astral cord that presumably led to my body. All the while we had to avoid the cops and mental health workers who were trying to work their way close enough to manage a bag-and-tag on the crazy street person who kept darting out into traffic.
By now we had picked up four Threshers who were rumbling along beside and behind like an honor guard. An honor guard waiting to shred me as soon as I popped outside of the crazy vet’s carcass. The crazy vet, meanwhile, was humming “As Those Caissons Go Rolling Along.”
The trick to steering is to firmly plant yourself in the driver’s seat.
“Uh-huh.”
Not that it’s that simple with most people. The conscious mind does not willingly admit to other consciousnesses, much less share motor control. It’s hard to get a grip unless the other’s grip is kind of loose to begin with.
Drugs, alcohol—sometimes that’s enough—
If the original will was weak to begin with.
Yeah, but the psych wards are usually the best places if you want a seat at the front of the bus.
“What are you saying? That the Middle Ages had it right? Mental illness is nothing more than demonic possession?”
Watch who you’re calling a demon, Bub!
Like I said, not always proud of what I was ordered to do—
I still have nightmares!
—but those it was done to did far worse to me and mine!
Let me tell you something, kid. When you’ve been around a little longer you’ll discover that nothing is all of one thing or another.
If there is a Devil, there are guys locked up in some upstate hospitals that even he wouldn’t want in Hell with him!
Yeah, there are things that will get inside your head—some of ‘em real, some imaginary. But there are guys who come out of the womb missing chromosomes that make the rest of us human.
Those, they don’t need no trauma and they don’t need no psychic hitchhikers to make ‘em dangerous. They’re just royally fucked up even before they’re potty-trained.
Which way, now?
Left. Go left.
Shit! The damn thing goes right through the wall!
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Slow down!
Stop! Stop!
Pauly ran into the wall and rebounded. And fell backwards and hit the pavement.
A pair of Threshers loomed to our right, a couple of cops to our left.
Damn! So near and yet so far!
The wall was adjacent to a hospital emergency entrance.
I said my goodbyes quickly. The cops had cuffed Pauly and were in the process of hauling him to his feet. With the Threshers hovering just beyond, I would have to dash for the wall while I was still close. A few extra feet and I would lose my narrow margin of proximity.
Stop by and drop a twenty in Pauly’s can if you can.
“How will I find you?”
Ask around.
Everyone on the street knows Pauly.
Yeah, they’ll keep us locked up for observation for a few days but eventually we’ll be back on the streets.
It never lasts too long.
And what is time when it’s already run out, once?
“Good point. See you guys around. Semper Fi!”
What?
Oh crap! You weren’t a Marine, were you?
“No. Coast Guard.”
Good. For a moment we were afraid we were gonna have to make Pauly strangle himself.
Yeah. Demons are one thing, jarheads are something else altogether.
The cops pulled Pauly away from the hospital.
I pulled in the opposite direction.
There was a popping sensation and the Threshers rushed in.
I jumped and staggered, trying to dislodge my insubstantial foot that was momentarily hung up in Pauly’s departing backside.
At the last minute I stumbled loose and fell through the wall.
And into the basement.
* * *
There must be dozens of storage rooms in hospital basements. Cleaning supplies, medical supplies, other supplies, parts, tools, equipment, furniture, linens.
Of course I landed in none of these. I ended up in the room with a wall full of stainless steel filing cabinets.
Filing cabinets with very wide drawers.
Drawers that weren’t designed for manila folders, hanging folders, or any other kind of paper management system.
These drawers were designed for storing dead bodies: I had dropped into the hospital’s morgue.
And the silvery cord that erupted from my hazy midsection snaked across the floor and into a drawer that was on the bottom row.
Chapter Eighteen
Maybe I wasn’t dead, yet.
Maybe the cord continued on through this wall of corpses like it had through a hundred other walls today, and I would find my body somewhere upstairs recovering nicely and receiving a sponge bath from a pretty nurse.
Hell, I’d settle on getting my rectal temperature taken by a homely intern, just as long as I was still alive!
Only one way to find out: follow the cord.
Just walk up to the drawer and take a look inside.
Yep. It’s just across the room, now.
Gonna start walking any minute now.
Any minute.
Real soon, now.
And then two people slammed into the morgue making enough noise to wake the dead.
Nothing seemed to stir inside the steel drawers so maybe that was a good sign.
The two appeared to be a teenaged boy and an older man. It was hard to get much in the way of details as they were on the other side of some frosted glass partition. Their voices carried clearly enough, though. Especially the older man’s: he was bordering on hysteria. The boy was following him around, trying to speak in a reasonable voice.
The man began grabbing at the stainless steel drawers set in the wall and trying to tug them open. “Where did they put her? Where is she? I want to see her!”
“What’s the point?” the teenage boy asked. “She’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“Gone on ahead.”
“But she should still be here!” the older man shrilled. “They took her! They’ve put her somewhere! Help me find her!”
“What would be the point?” the boy asked again.
“We should be together! They shouldn’t have taken her!”
“It’s not that they took her,” the kid tried to explain, “it’s just that she’s gone on ahead. You’re not going to find her here.”
“But she is here!” the older man screamed.
“No, no she isn’t. She’s gone on. You’re not going to find her here.”
“I have to see her!”
“Well, you can’t. Not really. She’s gone. Gone on. All that’s left is her body. And that’s no good any more.”
“Why? Oh, God! Why?”
“I don’t know why.” For the first time the boy’s voice took on an audible edge. “Why do you drink and then get behind the wheel of your truck? Did you think the odds would never catch up with you? Anyway, red lights don’t care if you’re drunk or sober! It was stupid! Just stupid!”
“I don’t remember any of that! Help me find her!” None of the drawers would open for him.
“Yeah, well, she’s not here. She went first. She’s gone on. And we should go, too.”
“Go where?”
“The next place. One of ‘em, anyways.”
“I’m not ready.”
The boy shrugged and it was as if the frosted glass that he was standing behind was becoming more opaque. “Who is? Look, I gotta go. It’s pulling at me and I’m afraid of what might happen if I resist while the welcome mat is still out.”
“I’m afraid!”
“Of what? The bare little bit I can see from here is bright and beautiful! It makes my eyes burn and my chest ache! I’ve never imagined anything like it!”
“I don’t see anything but darkness.”
“You have to look—”
And the boy was gone.
The man remained, moving from drawer to drawer. Giving up on opening up the body storage units, he began poking his head through the steel front pieces to examine the inner contents. “I can’t see. There isn’t any light. There isn’t any light!”
Suddenly the darkness inside the drawer where my cord led wasn’t half as frightening as the blindness outside in this room. I grasped the cord and, once again, used it as a lifeline as I pulled myself, hand over hand, along its faintly glowing length and into the filing cabinets of death.
The cord extended into the darkness and I passed bodies stacked at various levels and passed through and out into storage rooms of a more benign nature.
Eventually I found the stairs.
But I was well on my way to the first floor before I stopped hearing the anguished cries of “There isn’t any light!” echoing in the empty bowels of the basement corridors.
* * *
The emergency room was on the first floor but there was no point in loitering there. If I wasn’t in the morgue, yet, I would have been moved to the intensive care unit. I left the stairwell and went looking for a wall map to get my bearings and chart my course.
I found the hospital chapel, first.
I needed a moment to think.
And to rest.
I was exhausted. Even with
out physical muscles and tendons and ligaments, I ached and found it an effort to put one noncorporeal foot in front of the other. And what was I going to do once I got back to my physical shell? Climb back inside and try to wake up? Sit at the bedside and wait to see if I lived or died? I had spent the better part of the day working my way back toward my mortal remains and figuring out a few more aspects of the afterlife. But I hadn’t spent much time figuring out what I was going to do next.
What could I do next?
I slipped through the blond wood doors and entered the cool, darkened room.
Candles glimmered in alcoves and on a bare, nondenominational altar. Most of the light, however, came from the outside, filtered through stained glass windows depicting doves and healing hands and medical symbology: all faiths welcomed here including those who had none.
Another interpretation: the medical profession as God.
A half-dozen people were scattered throughout the pews. Some praying, some meditating, one sleeping. Two were joined by creatures who might’ve been cousins to the otherworldly clothiers back in the green-and-white-marbled store. One individual was surrounded by a fog of darkness. The darkness made a hissing, whispering sound and the woman who sat at its malevolent core wept softly and shuddered.
That didn’t seem right.
Correction: that seemed pretty fucking wrong!
Like anybody who wasn’t here on account of a paycheck needed any additional grief.
My own troubles were momentarily forgotten as I considered the cloud of sorrow and fear that enveloped the woman like a sour stain. “Hey!” I said, emboldened by the fact that no one alive was likely to hear me. “You, Dark Shadows; leave the lady alone!”
No one moved except the weeping woman, who gasped as if stung by a sudden, vicious ache. The shadowy mantle that encompassed her like an ouroborous of darkness twisted and writhed like a living thing.
“Yeah, I’m talking to you!” I shouted. “We don’t like your kind around here! This is a place for people to think good thoughts, hopeful thoughts. You go whisper your poison to the people who go where they want to hear your shit! Capeesh?”
It hissed and began to unwrap its anaconda embrace of the weeping woman.
“That’s right! This is a hospital, Bog Breath! People come here for healing! Go haunt a crack house, you toxic piece of sh—”
The misty fog crackled off of the woman and snapped across the chapel like black lightning, knocking me through the blond wood doors and back out into the corridor. Even though I had passed through the wood like an empty illusion, the sensation was like being knocked through a very solid wall by a pneumatic pile driver. I felt like one very solid ectoplasmic bruise.
Habeas Corpses - The Halflife Trilogy Book III Page 31