Habeas Corpses - The Halflife Trilogy Book III

by Wm. Mark Simmons

  Going down might have worked. Going up, however, required some motor skills that were a little more demanding. After a few Pratfalls of the Living Dead, I reluctantly turned and shuffled off in search of the elevator.

  Precious time was passing and the word had evidently gone out. I encountered no other personnel on my way to the lift. The elevator, when it arrived, was empty as well. I stepped inside and pressed the button for the third level. The doors closed and it started upward with a slight jerk.

  Halfway between floors it stopped with a big jerk.

  I punched buttons but nothing happened. It looked like I was the big jerk: someone had cut the power

  I turned and looked out through the glass walls at the lobby below. People were coming out to observe the headless corpse in the big specimen jar trapped between the second and third levels.

  No point in hanging around: I quit the cold, lifeless flesh that had toted Theresa Kellerman on her last mission and jumped through the wall to land back on the floor I had just left. As a spook I could move more swiftly, now, but the stairs were still going to be a bit of a problem. Behind me and above, the headless corpse fell against one of the glass walls and then slid to the floor of the lift, leaving a greasy orange smear in its wake.

  * * *

  I passed by the OR and checked in on T’s head before continuing the search for my own. It was gone. Too bad I hadn’t taken the time to stash it in the autoclave before leaving.

  The stairs were a bitch but at least I wasn’t providing anyone with a visible target this time around. Eventually I made it to the top and hurried down the hall like a narcissistic Diogenes in search of self.

  The fire had been put out, though it still smoldered here and there. No bodies were in sight. I had to hand it to these guys: even after more than sixty years the Nazis were still an efficient lot.

  I moved ahead and noted that, as I approached the area where I had last left myself, new guards had been posted. They were doubled in number and spaced out in pairs so that every man could watch and be watched by the others. The Mengeles were quick studies.

  But were they quick enough to stop me from popping into the nearest warm body with a paper cut? And then starting a chain reaction of bloody noses that would have them killing each other off as I kept skipping ahead to new corpora delicti?

  Before we had a chance to find out, I spooked on ahead and checked the room where I had last found myself.

  It was empty.

  I moved on, afraid I’d spend another hour before I found it again, afraid I’d be too late, afraid—

  I found it a couple of doors down, in the room at the end of the hall.

  * * *

  I’d been moved from a surgical facility to a security hub. Rows of monitors showed a multiplicity of views throughout the complex, including several perimeter areas on the outside. The overturned anthill analogy was morphing back into an orderly beehive of recovery and reconnoiters. Groups of personnel—some uniformed, most drafted from support staff—were sweeping the various levels for signs of further disturbance or incursion. Treatment of the injured was proceeding apace. Surgeries were being performed in six different theaters.

  And I was in here, secured to a padded gurney with enough leather straps to delight a leather queen and restrain Houdini. Like I said, these guys were no dummies. Take one little corpse for a stroll and suddenly they were locking down bodies left and right. And keeping three more guards in the room as well as a doctor wearing a handgun in a belt holster and a scary-looking nurse who looked like she was recruited from the Russian Olympic shot-put team.

  The IV needle lodged deep in my arm would probably allow me ingress to my own flesh but unless I could unbuckle a few belts and convince a half-dozen people to look the other way, I wasn’t going any further.

  Still, I had to do something and I had to do it soon! The needle in my arm was directing my unique blood chemistry through a tube connected to an antique blood transfuser and, from there, down an adjoining tube to another needle in another arm.

  Mengele Prime.

  His wheelchair was momentarily abandoned and he lay on a small couch that had probably been carried in for this “battlefield” procedure. At least I hoped they had just brought it in. It didn’t match the rest of the décor and you don’t want people doing highly dangerous direct transfusions if they regularly mix their art nouveau with their art deco. The original Mengele looked like nothing as much as an ancient mummy being prepared for a fresh round of wrappings and vestments.

  Only . . . tock tick: he wasn’t getting older, he was starting to get younger!

  As I watched, his crinkled, parchment skin began to lose its papery look. Livered age spots were starting to fade even as the pale, pale hue of his epidermis took on a faint hint of color. In just a few minutes he had turned back the clock, moving from a centenarian to a man merely in his nineties. The Death Angel of Auschwitz, The Mangler, the Evil Genie of Eugenics, was being reborn for another generation, perhaps for all time, in this hour, in this place . . .

  And by the power of my blood!

  He trembled and groaned as his ancient flesh convulsed and the infinitesimal timepieces at the heart of each cell shivered into reverse. The couch was short but still wide enough that there was no danger of his rolling off. And he didn’t need restraining straps while the nurse who looked like a cross-dressing truck driver sat beside him. Still, the needle was jostled in his arm and a small cranberry tear wept from the place where he received my unholy communion.

  There was no doubting what had to be done and I jumped with only the slightest hesitation.

  * * *

  I should have known better. The previous incursions involved victims who were caught completely off-guard. My last fleshnapping bypassed a competing psyche altogether.

  But, as I said, the Mengeles were quick studies. They learned, adapted, prepared. Counterpunched.

  I jumped into the body of a feeble old man. There was nothing, however, feeble about the intellect waiting for me inside.

  Ahhhh, Cséjthe! I was wondering when you would return.

  As easily as I had knocked over and trampled the previous psyches I had run into, I now found myself put into a psychic half nelson by this current encounter. And as much as I struggled to free myself it was becoming abundantly clear that I was completely and effectively trapped. Maybe Mengele had more experience in wrestling personal demons: I was thoroughly pinned to the mental mat of his consciousness.

  You’ll never get away with this, Mengele! I grunted impotently.

  My dear Mr. Cséjthe, I have always gotten away with “it.” Do you know what I used to say to my Juden guinea pigs back in Auschwitz? “The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.” It was true then and it continues to be true today. Most of the filth that thinks of itself as “mankind” is merely cattle, fit only to serve the purposes of its Masters. Their herd mentality only leads them to the slaughterhouse that much more quickly.

  Oh, yeah? I was a little short on defiant comebacks and it was the best I could come up with for the moment.

  Yes. And now you have to decide, Mr. Cséjthe, whether you want to eat the hamburger or be the hamburger.

  Meaning?

  If I had more time I could construct some sort of electromagnetic device to restrain your noncorporeal essence. As things stand now I have one of three courses of action. One, I could continue to restrain you by the power of my superior will and intellect . . .

  But you gotta sleep sometime.

  Agreed. So, two, I could strike a deal that would put us on the same side—

  Not bloody likely!

  A mutually agreeable arrangement, then. I have things that you want; you have something that I want.

  What do you have that I want?

  Your body, for one.

  Yeah, and I suppose you’ll just give it back.

  In time. If I can successfully clone your preternatural flesh and your unique blood-producin
g marrow, then you can have your pick of the original or any number of copies.

  Sounds like I might be in for a bit of a wait. Unless you have some sci-fi short cut to speeding up the maturation process.

  Alas, no. This is reality, Mr. Cséjthe, not some hack writer’s fevered dream. But what is twenty to thirty years compared to losing your body forever? Then there is also the matter of your wife and daughter . . .

  Jenny and Kirsten are dead. You can’t hold them hostage.

  I have their DNA. They are already reborn anew.

  Big unfucking deal! All you’ve done is duplicate their genetic material. That’s not the same thing as what and who they really are. Did you make backup copies?

  You suspect I would create multiple hostages?

  I’m pointing out that if you make more than one Jenny, which one is really the woman I married? You’ve taken the sacred concept of personhood and turned it into a carnival shell game. Spiritual three-card monte. Three Jennies? Which one contains the original soul? Shuffle ‘em up and make us guess. And assuming that one clone even ends up with Jenny’s soul, what about the other two? Do they get dupes or whatever’s next in the queue? Or do they get anything at all? You may be able to clone biological matter but what about the non-material? Is it immaterial?

  Does it matter so much to you, Cséjthe, as long as you get your wife and daughter back?

  I can see where the question of a person’s soul has never been an issue for someone like you, asshole. The problem is I don’t know that I’d get my wife and daughter back! What you’re doing might be no different than finding a woman and child who resemble my deceased family and performing enough plastic surgery to make them physically identical but no more duplicates in mind and personality than complete strangers. And, at the other end of the spectrum, there’s the possibility that you would be doing something much worse.

  Worse?

  Check your Bible, Igor. Jesus said something interesting in the twelfth chapter of Matthew about what happens when a spirit departs from the body and then tries to come back later. It seems you may get some renters who weren’t listed on the original lease. Occupants who are likely to do way more damage than any security deposit can cover!

  Then perhaps you should be worried about returning to your own jar of clay.

  I’ve been doing nothing but, Doctor Demento. Let go and I’ll do a quick bed check.

  I think not. Your body isn’t going anywhere for the time being.

  So I noticed. The point is you think you’re all hot snot when it comes to Xeroxing the human genome but you’re just cold boogers when it comes to the metaphysical.

  The metaphysical?

  Like the question of what rushes in to fill the void once you’ve set up the housing. You may have hostages, they may look like my wife and daughter right down to their mitochondria, but I’m betting that the hearts and souls of my family are beyond any human reach now. They’ve gone where science cannot yet reach and may never go.

  Then let us speak of something less theoretical and closer at hand: the woman, Deirdre.

  Deirdre?

  Even now she is in surgery where my promise to the Kellerman woman is being fulfilled. If all goes well my little protégé will finally obtain a body that will not rot out from under her in a matter of days or weeks. As soon as the nerves in her neck are properly fused to the host’s central nervous system, the original head will be excised and removed so that a full transfer of conscious and autonomic functions can take place and symmetry can be finalized. I assume that you would prefer that your friend’s head not be discarded.

  Bastard!

  And if, as I suspect, her consciousness should survive in the same manner as the Kellerman woman’s, there’s a good chance of finding her a host body as well. Possibly cloning her her own over time.

  I struggled but still found I was unable to extricate myself from his mental grasp. Is that all?

  All? What? Would you like for me to offer wealth? Riches? Power? Something else to sweeten the deal?

  Oh yeah, that would do it. Move me into a higher tax bracket and I’ll happily spit in God’s eye, betray the memory of my family, and buddy up with the greatest child molester and murderer of all time. No, shithead, you said three courses of action. I think we’ve eliminated one and two from the list.

  Agreed. The third option is actually my preference, Cséjthe. I have everything I need without your cooperation. Your body continues to function separate from your consciousness. And I don’t believe I can trust you to keep any promises that violate your cattle code of ethics. So the third and preferable course of action is to simply snuff out your dislocated mind like a pinched candle flame.

  Oh. Kill me. Now there’s a surprise.

  Really?

  No. Only in that you’re trying to talk me to death, first.

  I needed time. While it is obvious that my will is stronger than yours, holding you is one thing. Destroying you may take a little more of an effort. As your transformative blood drips into my veins, it makes my flesh younger, my body stronger. As the vessel regains youth and vitality, the mind is invigorated, as well. Even now my hold upon your own consciousness grows ever stronger. It will not be long before I can crush your thoughts as effortlessly as I would crush the hollow, matchstick bones of a bird or a mouse!

  And the pressure that surrounded my thoughts began to increase, pressing in upon my consciousness as if my head were still corporeal and being squeezed within a heavy steel vise.

  I heard a shout and thought it was my own. Then the pressure lessened a little and I could see through Mengele’s eyes. An alarm had gone off and the room was filling up with security goons.

  Someone was pointing at one of the monitors. A switch was thrown and the image was duplicated on the large, master screen above the rest.

  The view was of the outside. Specifically the front doors. Which were wide open. No one was in sight, though.

  Of course the Wendigo and her army of Amerind guardian spirits probably wouldn’t register in the electromagnetic spectrum so they wouldn’t be picked up by the security cameras. But something would have had to have been done about that big Ttsilolni—the swastika—over the entrance for them to breach the outer doors.

  Someone turned a knob and the outside security camera zoomed in, enlarging the entrance area. There was no eagle, no wreathed swastika, no “Brut Adler” chiseled above the entrance, only an amorphous mass that rippled and writhed over the rough stone.

  “What is that?” a guard asked.

  The camera zoomed in closer. The mass was predominantly orange, shot through with black.

  Orange and black suddenly rose up and obscured our vision completely. Mengele reached up and brushed at his eyes. I tried to pull away, actually getting halfway out of his head before his mind grabbed hold again. His fingers, meanwhile, came away with a captured insect. It was a monarch butterfly; its orange-and-black wings dusting his fingers with a fine powdering of scales.

  Another one fluttered by to land on his arm near the needle feeding his vein.

  “Where are they coming from?” he wheezed.

  He might well ask that in the larger context: monarch migration paths took them from Florida, the coast of Texas, and the mountain forests in Central Mexico to the Canadian borderlands and back again. But while they traveled various routes over the Eastern Plains and along the West Coast, the migratory patterns avoided the Rocky Mountains. And sightings were rare during the summers and never during the winters.

  We weren’t in a large room so it didn’t take that long to answer his question in the smaller context: a dozen more orange-winged invaders were crawling between the metal vanes of the air vent and spilling down from above.

  As another wave of monarchs fluttered over, circling Mengele like curious gliders, I made another attempt to pull free. This new distraction was sufficient: I popped out of the old man’s carcass like a cork from a champagne bottle. He stopped waving at the insects long enough to
make another mental grab for me and he, too, popped out. Mengele’s body collapsed and the nurse and doctor were suddenly faced with the double duty of shooing butterflies while checking their patient’s vital signs.

  Meanwhile I had a very tenacious foe still attempting to put me back in a psychic headlock. Any hope that a sudden shock had killed him disappeared as I noticed the silver cord that snaked back to his physical body. I was facing an astral projection of the Death Angel of Auschwitz, not his ghost. His vague, translucent form resembled the photographs of Mengele in his prime, not the wizened old man sprawled on the couch. Which reminded me: with every minute that ticked by, his body was absorbing more of my blood from the transfusion and growing younger and stronger in the bargain.

  He lunged for me and I decided, strategically, that the floor beneath my feet just wasn’t that substantial, after all. I dropped like a stone in a well, catching a glimpse of hundreds of butterflies on the floor below flying reconnaissance patterns.

  Just in time I decided the basement floor was solid and bounced to a stop before losing myself in the mountain’s bedrock beneath. I took a moment to examine my plan and prioritize. I needed to find Deirdre and stop the operation before it was too late. I needed to return and stop the transfusion before it was too late. I probably needed to hook up with Wendigo and her troops to: (a) get their help and (b) keep them from harming either of us on their bloody rampage before it was too late.

  And to cover the most ground the fastest, a physical body would be an asset. So, first on the list: head for the upper levels and look for another bloody staff member on the way.

  I was five ghostly strides into my revised plan when Mengele bungee-jumped into the basement behind me. Like I said, a quick study.

  I ran.

  “I’m not letting you escape, again,” he called after me. “I’m not safe as long as you are loose!”

  “Ditto, Dr. Frankenfurter.” I dove through the wall next to the door and found myself in a narrow service corridor. I turned left and ducked around the corner. It was a dead end. Too late to reverse my steps, I waited, hoping he would go the other direction.