Dark Advent

by Brian Hodge

  But all that was now so much fantasy, pictures to play in his mind as he kicked back on his mattress in the jail cell.

  One consolation: His lawyer—a court appointee, and Travis felt she actually seemed to give a damn about what she was doing, certainly not the attitude he’d expected in a P.D.—thought he might be able to successfully sue the city of St. Louis over an incident that had occurred when they’d brought him in. Apparently a drug bust, no small potatoes deal either, had gone down that morning, complete with dope-sniffing dogs and everything. One of the narcotics officers was in at the same time as Travis was being processed, with his dog in tow. And while Travis was doing nothing more than standing there acting the part of the contrite felon, the fucking beast made a lunge for him. It was a big German Shepherd, and it briefly managed to clamp its jaws onto his upper right arm. The cop made a mad scramble for the leash, but Travis was even quicker. With his hands cuffed behind him, he still managed to kick the dog away. It moved in again, snarling with bared teeth, and Travis let fly with his elbow, leaning his whole body into it. The dog went down hard on the tiled floor, skidding and yelping. Only then did Travis notice his arm bleeding at a pretty good clip. But it was worth it, considering the satisfaction he got out of being able to think he’d just decked a member of the St. Louis Police Department and had gotten away with it.

  Dogs had never liked him anyway.

  After a quick side trip to get his arm cleaned and patched up, the boys in blue introduced him to his new home. The bars, the walls, the floor, the mattresses, even the narrow slice of sky visible through the short window bars at the top of the rear wall…all were tastefully colored in cheerful shades of gray, with all the warmth of a dungeon. The cell held accommodations for four, though Travis brought it up to only half-capacity.

  When the cell door clanged shut behind him, soon followed by the steel door down the corridor, the pit of Travis’s stomach gave a quick flutter. Caged like a rat. This was the real thing.

  “Sheeeit, man,” said his new roommate, cloaked in shadow on a lower bunk, and the voice was ghetto. “You a mess.”

  It had been a while since Travis had seen a mirror, but with his bandaged arm, singed hair, and raw cheek, he figured the guy on the bunk was making an accurate assessment.

  Travis grunted and made for the lower bunk across the cell. His roommate sat up and into better light; the voice belonged to a wiry black fellow with a scruffy beard, a splashy Hawaiian shirt, and a bushy Afro. Travis hadn’t seen one of those for years. Give the guy a headband and he could’ve doubled for Jimi Hendrix.

  “What brings you to these parts?” the man asked.

  “Long story,” Travis said. Inside he was playing a mental movie complete with pyrotechnics and worthless kids who tried in vain to clamber through flaming windows; it made him feel better.

  The black man chuckled. “Sheeeit, man, I got nuthin’ but time.”

  * *

  His name was Cletus Snow, as Travis eventually learned, but he said he wasn’t too crazy about that first name, so he went by Diamond instead. When Travis finally felt conversational enough to ask him what he was in for, he found that Diamond had stuck around too long during an after-hours smash-and-grab at a jewelry store, trying to stuff a few more of his namesakes into a canvas bag.

  “Rule number one,” said Diamond, popping his knuckles. “Don’t get too greedy when your ass gonna be up for grabs soon.”

  Diamond didn’t shrink from Travis after he’d told his own story, so in Travis’s eyes he was an okay guy so far. Put Diamond on a trial friendship, see how things fared over the next few days.

  The next day, Tuesday, a violently coughing boy in blue brought a third man into the cell. He had a hatchet face and a blade-thin nose that he looked down at everybody. Miles, he said his name was, but not whether it was his first or last.

  “Fucking tremendous,” he said, standing in the entrance to the cell and appraising Diamond, then Travis. “A welfare cheat and a chewed-up, third-rate Charles Bronson.” He shook his head and strolled for the bunk above Travis.

  “Man, you got a serious attitude problem,” Diamond said from the shadows of his bunk. But from the light tone of his voice it was apparent that Miles’s opinions meant nothing to him.

  Travis held his tongue. Instead, he sat clenching and unclenching his fists. Yeah, it would feel good to let one fly. But it was time to think smart; let the rage build slowly, let it simmer, let it work for him. Give it time to channel it constructively instead of venting it at whoever happened to piss him off the most.

  But, he vowed, Miles would get his soon, whenever the time was right.

  * *

  The hour was unknown. Somewhere between late Wednesday night and dawn Thursday.

  Travis lay half-asleep, hovering in that state where thoughts come and go as rapidfire as numbers in a random generator. He fixed on one of his favorite movies, First Blood…Sly Stallone trashing a stationhouse full of cops on his way out the door. Wouldn’t that go down smooth right about now?

  And he thought of Sheila. Come to think of it, it was her fault he was in here. If she’d never run off, if she’d stayed where she belonged, where she had a good thing going and a man who knew what she needed, there was no doubt she would’ve calmed him down the other night.

  Was she still around St. Louis? What would she do if she learned where he was now? Probably laugh her ass right off. That ass, once so compact and shapely, had gotten broader than he wanted it. But right now, it’d still be a lot easier on his eyes than that perpetually arrogant smirk on Miles’ face.

  It had taken less than a day for both Travis and Diamond to realize that, speaking of asses, Miles was a gigantic pain in theirs. He’d actually gotten worse once he’d grown accustomed to how much there was to complain about in the cell.

  Travis reminded him that it was no fucking picnic for anyone.

  Miles said that maybe they were used to such conditions, but he sure as hell wasn’t. He was here as a result of a misunderstanding.

  Why not just kill him in his sleep? Travis wondered sourly, crossing his ankles. It’s not like I don’t have five counts of the same thing already against me.

  Let it go, he decided. For now. Miles’s mouth would get him in over his head sooner or later.

  The corridor door rattled open, and in came the sound of scuffling footsteps. Closer, closer…stopping outside his cell…and then the cell door clanged open and shut. Diamond and Miles hadn’t stirred. Miles slept like the dead, and Diamond had apparently been around long enough to get used to the nightly comings and goings.

  Then came the eclipse.

  The new guy blocked out a good portion of the light from the corridor’s naked bulbs. Travis watched as he stood gazing from bunk to bunk in search of the free one. His bald head reflected a bit of the light, his massive shoulders twitched. With his rapid and shallow breathing, he looked as if he might be hyperventilating. His deepset eyes, protected by prominent ridges of bone, darted wildly about the cell. He looked for all the world like a hugely overgrown child, suddenly realizing he’s lost in a big, bad department store, with no mom in sight.

  He looked familiar, as well. Though how Travis could forget a specimen as unique as this one, he didn’t know.

  Travis watched as he slowly, with head hung and shoulders drooping, climbed into the bunk above Diamond. Shoes and all. Facing the wall, he curled himself into a surprisingly small fetal ball. Soon, Travis thought he heard the muffled sound of sobbing. And maybe, just maybe, a softly whispered name: “Al.”

  Suddenly he put his finger on it.

  Travis couldn’t be sure until the morning, but he thought he’d seen the guy on televised wrestling. Only there he’d blended in a lot better. No small number of freaks running loose there.

  So what had brought him to this dead end?

  Guy looks totally lost. Travis
had never been impressed by the brains exhibited by the typical pro wrestler. He’d seen smarter pack mules. Without his trainer or manager, this giant probably was lost.

  Maybe he needed a friend.

  And if you harnessed the power in one of those guys, brought it over to your side…you just might have one hell of a formidable weapon on your hands.

  * *

  “Would you. Look. At this.” Miles—who else? He was pointing his finger at the cell’s latest arrival, who was urinating into the heavily stained toilet along the rear wall.

  “Must’ve dumped him off on us during the night.” Miles got to his feet and strolled over for a closer inspection. “Put you in a white T-shirt and you could pass for Mister Clean’s retarded brother.”

  The big guy didn’t say anything; he just shook himself off and zipped up again. And stood there, facing the wall.

  Miles looked back at Travis and tapped his own ear, then turned back to the new man. “Deaf-mute, right?” He paused and got no answer. “Deaf and dumb? That you? Huh?” His face was like that of a scientist probing the boundaries of some newly discovered dimension.

  Travis pushed himself up, feeling pangs of hunger for a breakfast that hadn’t been served yet, and walked over to stand by the big guy’s other side.

  “Just leave the man alone.” Travis clapped a friendly hand on his shoulder. He felt heavily bunched muscle, even more solid than his own. “He’ll talk when he’s good and ready.” He moved a few steps away, but stayed near. And noticed the guy watching him from the corner of his eye.

  “I don’t care if he talks or not,” Diamond said, still flat on his back and grinning. “I just don’t want his ass falling through that bunk and landing on me.”

  The new man started to climb back up into his bunk, without so much as a single word.

  Miles laughed and shook his head. “Look at his eyes, man. What do you want to bet he’s in here for chopping up his grandma with an ax?”

  The guy paused, put his hands on the bunk’s iron frame.

  Miles planted his fists against his hips with the air of a man assuming total control. “Listen, if they expect me to sleep in the same cell with this mongoloid, they got another thing coming. Shit. Look at him! The guy’s fucking creepy!”

  For an instant, every muscle beneath the guy’s tattered blue work shirt seemed to flex. And then, well, Travis couldn’t recall ever having seen anyone so big move so quickly, and with such deadly silence. All at once the big guy had Miles by the throat with one hand, one hand, lifting him up off the floor and sliding him up the back wall by the toilet. His other hand drew back into a claw, fingers hooking into something that looked absolutely lethal, something that in the next second would be plunging into Miles’s red squirming face.

  “Easy now…don’t,” Travis said, and sidled up beside the big guy to pat a hand on his quivering shoulder. The guy looked down at him, and Travis thought he must be at least six-five in his stocking feet. The expression in his eyes was tough to read. He saw a taut wariness there, but something else along with it. A kind of longing, maybe. A desperation.

  “Just let him back down. This asshole? Hell, he’s not worth the piss you just flushed.” Truth be told, Travis would’ve loved nothing more than seeing Miles staggering around the cell with his face dangling from strings of gristle, but a lot more than pre-breakfast entertainment was at stake here. Could he stop the big guy? Control him? If so, that would be some mighty leverage he’d have over Miles from now on. Under my thumb. A pleasure that would last long after Miles’s blood would’ve dried on the cell floor. “Just ease him back down.”

  The guys in the nearby cells, those who could see what was going on, were hooting and calling for action, telling the big guy to tear his head off and piss in the stump, telling the little guy to kick the giant in the balls. But their voices seemed far away. The world had been reduced to a tight little triangle.

  Miles slid an inch or two down the rough concrete, past the coarse, uncreative graffiti. His face was now a lovely shade of maroon.

  Travis offered a tight smile. “That’s it. Back to the floor.”

  Inch by inch, the big guy let Miles down until his feet touched the floor again. Miles stumbled back across the cell to the front corner, the farthest point away he could get to. And finally he was at a loss for words.

  “Good man,” Travis said, never taking his eyes from the giant beside him…who now finally seemed to thaw. “I’ve seen you on TV, haven’t I?”

  Tentatively, the guy nodded. “Maybe you did.”

  “Thought so. You’re good. Damned good. One of my favorites. No one in the ring like you, that’s for sure.” The lies were rolling smooth as silk. “What was the name again?”

  “Pit Bull Pearson.” The voice was soft, not as deep as you might expect.

  “Pit Bull, right, that’s the one.” Travis slapped his forehead. “How could I forget that name? Yeah, you can really kick ass and not fuck with taking names at all.’’

  Pit Bull’s mouth curved upward, almost a smile. “You don’t tangle with Pit Bulls, ’cause Pit Bulls bite.”

  Travis grinned very wide. “I bet they do at that.” He slapped his new friend on the shoulder. “Tell you what, Pit Bull…this one’s just for you. You and you alone.”

  Travis moved across the cell with casual ease. For a moment it looked as if he would simply return to his bunk. But suddenly he hopped left and his arm flashed out like a lightning bolt made flesh and his fist caught Miles squarely in the middle of his still-reddened face. Miles slid down the wall again, this time until his rump touched the cold floor. And there he stayed. Third-rate Charles Bronson my ass.

  Travis glanced back over his shoulder. “Just for you.”

  Pit Bull nodded mutely. His eyes seemed to grow misty. With what? Gratitude? Love, even? Maybe both.

  And Travis felt quite sure that if he’d asked, Pit Bull would have killed for him in that moment.

  14

  Computer transmission from Barnes Hospital, St. Louis, to Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta; Monday, July 13, 1987:

  7-13 0938

  DR. WHITLEY KRAMER, FIELD CHIEF, EPIDEMIC INTELLIGENCE SERVICE TO: SPECIAL PATHOGENS BRANCH RE: PASTEURELLA PESTIS, POTOSI STRAIN

  ETIOLOGY

  ……………………………………………………………

  FUNDAMENTALLY SIMILAR IN STRUCTURE AND PHYSIOLOGY TO STANDARD BUBONIC PLAGUE BACILLUS PASTEURELLA PESTIS WITH FOLLOWING DEVIATIONS:

  LARGER SIZE, RANGING FROM .6 TO 1.50 MICRONS

  BACILLI EXHIBIT CILIA; HENCE MOTILE BEHAVIOR

  MORE COMPLEX ANTIGEN STRUCTURE, WITH AT LEAST 18 ANTIGENS PRESENT, INCLUDING 2 AS YET UNIDENTIFIED ANTIGENS NOT SEEN IN PREVIOUS PLAGUE STRAINS

  REPORTS CONTAINING DETAILED ANALYSES, ELECTRON MICROSCOPE PHOTOGRAPHS, AND BACTERIA SAMPLES TO ARRIVE BY EIS COURIER TOMORROW.

  PATHOGENICITY

  ……………………………………………………

  SYMPTOMOLOGY APPEARS DERIVATIVE OF ALL 3 MAJOR CLINICAL PATTERNS, I.E., BUBONIC, PNEUMONIC, AND SEPTICEMIC PLAGUES. INCUBATION PERIOD OF EXTREMELY SHORT DURATION, RANGING FROM A FEW HOURS TO 3 DAYS, FOLLOWED BY ACUTE FULMINANT ONSET OF SYMPTOMS CHARACTERIZED BY CHILLS, FEVER OF 103° TO 107° F, RAPID PULSE WITH HYPOTENSION, SEVERE HEADACHE. ENLARGED LYMPH NODES SOMETIMES APPEAR SIMULTANEOUSLY WITH FEVER, COMMONLY INGUINAL AND/OR AXILLARY AND/OR CERVICAL. CHEST X-RAYS SHOW RAPIDLY PROGRESSING PNEUMONIA DEVELOPING WITHIN 24 HOURS. PULMONARY LESIONS COMMON: SPUTUM IS MUCOID WITH PROMINENT PRESENCE OF BLOOD, AND CONTAINS LARGE NUMBERS OF PLAGUE BACILLI. SYMPTOMOLOGY IN LATER STAGES MAY INCLUDE DELIRIUM, CONFUSION, AND INCOORDINATION, WITH SUBCUTANEOUS HEMORRHAGING MORE COMMON THAN IN STANDARD PRESENT-DAY STRAINS; IN THIS RESPECT, BACILLUS IS MORE AKIN TO MEDIEVAL STRAINS OF “THE BLACK DEATH” THAN TO OTHER CONTEMPORARY STRAINS. CASE-FATALITY RATIO SO FAR 99.6%, WITH DEATH GE
NERALLY OCCURRING WITHIN 24 TO 72 HOURS OF ONSET OF SYMPTOMS. DEATH OCCURS DUE TO MYOCARDIAL FAILURE, OVERWHELMING LUNG CONGESTION, OR BLOODSTREAM TOXINS, DEPENDING ON WHICH SYMPTOMS HAVE BECOME MOST ADVANCED DURING PROGRESSION OF DISEASE.

  EPIDEMIOLOGY

  ……………………………………………………..

  DISEASE APPEARS CONFINED SOLELY TO HUMAN POPULATION, WITH TRANSMISSION OCCURRING BY USUAL DROPLET NUCLEI INFECTION DURING EPISODES OF COUGHING BY INFECTED PERSON. NO INFESTATIONS AMONG RODENT POPULATION IN ENDEMIC AREAS HAVE BEEN FOUND. ORIGIN OF INFECTION UNKNOWN, THOUGH FIRST REPORTED CASES EXIST IN POTOSI, MISSOURI; INVESTIGATION CONTINUING. RELATIVELY SMALL NUMBER OF ASYMPTOMATIC HUMAN CARRIERS HAVE BEEN FOUND, WITH APPARENTLY DORMANT BACILLI IN THEIR THROATS. UNDER CONTINUED OBSERVATION, THESE PHARYNGEAL CARRIERS EXHIBITED NO ONSET OF SYMPTOMS. IMMUNITY SEEMS CERTAIN: SUBSEQUENT COVERT EXPERIMENTATION ON SELECT CONTROL GROUP OF SUCH SUBJECTS RENDERED 100% INABILITY TO INDUCE DISEASE SYMPTOMS. SUBJECTS’ MODE OF INITIAL ACQUISITION OF PLAGUE BACILLUS IS UNKNOWN, HOWEVER, AS HUMAN TRANSMISSION INVARIABLY RESULTS IN MORTALITY. TRAIT COMMON TO ALL ASYMPTOMATIC CARRIERS YET TO BE ESTABLISHED.

  TREATMENT

  …………………………………………………………

  ALL STANDARD CHEMOTHERAPY USED SUCCESSFULLY AGAINST PREVIOUS STRAINS INEFFECTIVE. TETRACYCLINES, CHLORAMPHENICOL, STREPTOMYCIN, AND SULFONOMIDES ALL INEFFECTIVE, IN INTRAMUSCULAR, INTRAVENOUS, AND ORAL ADMINISTRATIONS. THIS APPEARS DUE TO BEHAVIORAL DIFFERENCES PECULIAR TO THIS MUTANT STRAIN: MOTILE ACTIVITY ALLOWS FREE MOVEMENT OF BACILLI TO ADMINISTERED DRUG MUCH LIKE ANTIBODY ACTIVITY, FOLLOWED BY PINOCYTIC BEHAVIOR. IN ESSENCE, ADMINISTERED DRUGS ARE BEING CONSUMED BY MASS QUANTITIES OF PLAGUE BACILLI AND STORED HARMLESSLY WITHIN CELL BODIES, MUCH IN THE MANNER MAMMALS HAVE BEEN KNOWN TO “POCKET” DOSES OF POTENTIALLY LETHAL MATERIAL. ALL ATTEMPTS AT INOCULATION AND SYNTHESIS OF ARTIFICIAL IMMUNIZATION AGENT INEFFECTIVE. DIRECT INOCULATION OF LIVE VIRUS HAS RESULTED IN DEATH OF EXPERIMENTAL SUBJECTS. ISOLATED PLAGUE BACILLI EASILY KILLED BY EXPOSURE TO ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT; HOWEVER, IMMUNIZATION AGENTS DERIVED FROM SUSPENSIONS OF KILLED DILUTED BACILLI AS WELL AS LIVING DILUTED BACILLI INEFFECTIVE.