Guinea Pig

by Curtis, Greg

  Someone had printed the photos out and they were lying on the table in front of them all; huge A4 sized images on glossy paper that showed every single iota of William's condition. But seeing them there Elijah worried that they were there for the wrong reason. That they were there simply for the satisfaction of vulgar curiosity. Not to help them to help Mr. Simons.

  And now that a meeting had been called and the bishop was in attendance along with others, Elijah was worried that its purpose wasn't quite what he had hoped for either. There were no doctors with them and no biologists. No detailed reports on encounters with angels and no scientific papers on birds and flying. And the questions the bishop had asked so far weren't those he had expected. In fact they seemed to have little to do with William Simons at all, and everything to do with a hospital that had fallen into a sink hole.

  “So the hospital sank into the ground the moment Mr. Simons was given the injection?”

  The bishop asked yet another question that Elijah simply hadn't expected and it caught him a little off guard. He had to think for a moment, collect his thoughts as he remembered what Reginald had told him. And the bishop looked worried he noticed, which didn't seem good. But he also sounded as if he knew something.

  “Within the hour apparently. While the trial was running.”

  “Long enough for the angelic essence to combine with the human.” The Bishop shook his head sadly – or maybe in disbelief. “I should have guessed it was something like this. But I never thought. I never imagined it was possible. Or that anyone would be so insane as to try.”

  “Your Excellency?”

  Despite his worries Elijah was intrigued. It seemed that the bishop knew something about what had been done. And that placed him far ahead of him.

  “That a line would be crossed. And crossed so terribly. Arrogance and stupidity. A modern day Tower of Babel.”

  The bishop wasn't making sense Elijah thought, and yet he had the look on his face of someone who knew something. Some dark and terrible truth. So he waited patiently for him to explain. The others did as well, most of them Elijah guessed, having as little understanding as he did.

  He still wasn't completely clear why they were all here in his rectory. Granted the theft of the artefact was a terrible crime and now that they knew who had done it they needed to consider what their response should be.

  And what Reginald Millen had done to William Simons was an even worse crime. It had been human experimentation and was every bit as repugnant as what the Nazi's had done in World War Two. But what they could do about that was next to nothing. At least as far as stopping it was concerned. He wasn't sure that all the hospitals in the world could. The doctor himself said it was irreversible. There was little they could do except try to bring comfort to his victim. But that didn't require the attendance of a bishop, two aides, three more priests and a religious scholar. A religious scholar who didn't seem to be particularly concerned about collating the information they had about angels for Mr. Simons, the very reason William had spoken to them and let them take photos in the first place.

  “Bishop Benenson?” Elijah prodded him when he grew silent for too long.

  “Doctor Millen did something that hasn't been done in thousands of years. Something that should never have been done again. And in doing so he created a rift between the celestial and the Earthly. And from that everything that's happened has flown. The sink hole, the ice storm, the fire storm – all of them.”

  His words drew a couple of gasps from around the table and all eyes suddenly focused on the bishop. They had come together to help a man in need, and suddenly he was talking about the disasters plaguing the city and somehow connecting them.

  “You think that all of that is connected to this?”

  The pastor wasn't convinced. Not of that. Weird though all the happenings might be, how could they possibly be related to the doctor's bizarre experiment? And yet he was curious. Even intrigued. And he couldn't dismiss it completely out of hand. Though he could see no logical connection between the different things, they were all bizarre and they had all occurred at the same time. What was it that detectives said? That there was no such thing as a coincidence.

  “I know it is. Just as I know that what the doctor thought he was doing wasn't what he actually did.”

  “He thought he would transform a man into an angel.”

  Which was something Elijah still couldn't believe he had even considered possible. He understood the intent behind it. Or some of it now that Reginald – in between his bouts of depression, guilt and mania – had started confessing a little more. It seemed that he had thought that the world was sliding into darkness and that they needed to bring some light into it. His solution though – that he could somehow halt the slide through this mad science – was shocking to him. The doctor was not completely rational. Not perhaps even close. And as to what he'd actually done, Elijah didn't know. But he feared it would end up in a painful death. Looking back on his talks with Will Simons he knew the young man feared the same. And when the doctor had come to him and confessed, he had said the same. Will Simons had called him a murderer and the doctor could not accept that.

  “But that's not what he did.” The bishop took a deep breath and then stared straight at him. “The sons of God found the daughters of man attractive. Remember that?”

  “Of course. Genesis. The Cainites and the Sethites.”

  “No.” The Bishop shook his head a bit more forcefully. “The Fallen and human women. Bringing forth between them the race of giants and warriors known as the nephilim. You should use the literal interpretation for the term “the sons of God”. And the literal interpretation is angels. It's used elsewhere. The Book of Job for a start.”

  Pastor Franks took a moment to think before saying anything. He knew that many did accept the literal biblical interpretation of the term “sons of God”, but in this instance he didn't. It went against reason. But that he realised was a matter for another time. There was a more important question.

  “You think Doctor Millen has created a nephilim?” And while Elijah might know little of them, for they were only mentioned in the Bible a handful of times, he did know they were bad news.

  “I think he has created that which all angels fear. A creature that is part man and part angel. Part of heaven and part of Earth. And he has done it in a way that violates all the laws of nature. For there was no coming together of a man and a woman. There was no consent by one parent for the act let alone the conception. It is an act of rape. And that which was created is both the deceived parent and the innocent child.”

  “And now that there is a nephilim walking the Earth, a creature not seen since before the flood that swept all such wickedness away, the Fallen are stirring. They finally see a chance for freedom from their prison.”

  “The Fallen? You think hell is breaking free?” Elijah almost couldn't believe he was hearing it, let alone saying the words. And looking around the table he guessed the others didn't either.

  “Fire and ice falling from the sky? The ground opening up and swallowing whole buildings? Specifically the building where this nephilim was conceived and at that very moment? I know it is.”

  His words were greeted with a stunned silence as everyone there tried to absorb them. And all of them were asking themselves the one same question:

  Could he be right?

  Elijah knew that there were Fallen, though what precisely they were he didn't know. Some said they were fallen angels, others called them demons. Psychiatrists called them schizophrenia and other similar terms. All he knew was that he sometimes saw their handiwork in the world. Not possessions as Hollywood would have everyone believe. They weren't usually that direct. But rather temptation. They didn't possess, they whispered. They spoke to the souls of the ambitious and told them of greatness beyond ambition. They whispered to the souls of the greedy of wealth beyond wealth. They whispered to the souls of the wronged and told them not of justice but of revenge.

>   Their signs were everywhere. But of the Fallen themselves, he'd never seen one. And he'd never heard of them physically destroying the world. Not outside of the movies.

  Finally Elijah asked the question that mattered if the bishop was right. He didn't want to ask. But this was the meeting he had called even if it was going strangely. He had to ask. “What chance do the Fallen think they have?”

  “A man with a soul who from what you have said has been confirmed in the faith. A Christian even if lapsed. But at the same time a creature with the power of the angels. He walks between two worlds, and as the transformation continues his power will grow.”

  “The Fallen surely believe that if his power grows sufficiently he will become a Fallen angel like them. But one with a soul and free will so that he cannot be cast down by God for disobedience. He is permitted to disobey. He can free them. And in doing so he will bring about the end of days.”

  The pastor thought about that for a bit. Trying to work out whether it was madness or wisdom. And while it sounded like madness, there was still something in it that would not let him dismiss it out of hand. Maybe it was the fact that much of the world seemed to have descended into madness of late. And how were you supposed to pick out the true madness from the false? He didn't know, save that he knew it had to be done by faith.

  “I've spoken to William Simons, come to know him a little bit. Twice since he has finally learned of what Doctor Millen did to him. And while he is no saint he is a good man. His faith may be stretched, but I do not believe that he would ever willingly do as you fear.”

  “Willingly?” The bishop stared at him. “Perhaps not. But the Fallen will whisper to him as they whisper to others. They will lie to him. Deceive him. Confuse him. And when they are finished he may not know what is right and what is wrong.”

  “He knows what's right and wrong Bishop Benenson. And there seems to be little anger in his heart. Only sorrow and despair. And a need to spare those he loves as much pain as he can.” Which was why he had the pastor writing letters for him. Letters to send to his family when the time came. Far from angry as he had every right to be, the man was resigned to his fate.

  “He no longer knows how to read and write. He is seeing hallucinations. What he knows is becoming less by the day. And what he will believe if someone whispers it into his soul becomes greater with it.”

  “So what do we do?”

  Elijah decided that there was no point in debating the theology of nephilim any further just then. Only in the practical.

  “We do whatever we have to do to save the world. And that has to begin with the government. They have to be told of this. Maybe their scientists can do something where Doctor Millen cannot. And when things change as they must and Mr. Simons becomes dangerous, they will have to contain him. If they can.”

  “Dangerous?”

  “At some point Mr. Simons will look to open the gates. Maybe if he is a prisoner that can be stopped. He may be the most dangerous man in existence. And by the end he may not even be a man.”

  “That's -.” Elijah tried to think of a word to say what that was, and suddenly discovered that he didn't have one. It was madness, but it might also not be. It was a violation of a man's rights, but if the bishop was right it might also be the only thing to do. Certainly it was a sin against William Simons, but at the same time he had the thought that the man was moving beyond caring. The last time he'd seen him William had not only been resigned to his fate, but also wandering mentally. You could see it in his eyes. The way they lost focus every so often. The way he looked away and when he did you felt that his thoughts were far further away than whatever they gazed upon. William was slipping away, little by little.

  “I know.” The bishop answered him even when he couldn't finish his own sentence. “But do we have a choice?”

  And as he sat there staring at the bishop, Elijah suddenly realised that he couldn't answer him. He didn't know what was right or wrong in this. That was an unusual thing for him. But he suspected it was something that was going to become more common as time went on.

  Chapter Nineteen.

  The lightning touched down beside Will and it startled him. But only a little. For hours it had been the same. The massive storm was currently covering the entire city and according to what he'd heard on the radio much of the state. And like everything that had gone before it, it was causing terrible destruction. Those planes that had been hit while in the air had crashed. All their lightning protection systems had been completely overloaded by these bolts. Cars everywhere were exploding. Some of them were actually melting, such was the ferocity of the lightning. Where it touched concrete the concrete exploded. Roads and buildings were slowly being blown apart by it. Power to half the state was down. Wires and transmission plants had been destroyed. Fires were once more burning out of control. And no one had any idea how many more had been killed.

  No one could explain what was causing it. There was no wind, no rain, no storm. The sky was a perfect blue and the sun was shining brightly. Again. This wasn't the sort of whether for lightning. And no lightning strikes on Earth had ever been so powerful. Nor had there ever been so many at once. Not in recorded history. So what else was new?

  In fact there was only one thing that Will did understand: the pattern. This disaster, whatever it was, was growing. Growing more intense, and covering a wider area. There was a pattern. The sink hole had only affected the clinic. The ice storm fifty square miles. The lava bombs had rained down over the entire city and its surrounds. And now the lightning was covering half the state. When this was over and the next disaster hit, how bad would it be?

  Evacuations were no longer possible. Not just because of how many were affected. But because as this thing grew it was engulfing the evacuation points. Already he knew that those who had evacuated the city were once more in danger. Many of the refugee camps were in the new strike zone. And he knew that it would only get worse.

  The radio had only two pieces of advice for everyone. First; stay inside. Second; stay away from anything metallic.

  Will could do that. But he wasn't sure that he really wanted to. These days he was beginning to suspect that a nice quick death would be a mercy. The pain from the changes was bad but he could deal with it. The changes to his mind he couldn't handle. And they were getting worse. All of them.

  He cycled between acceptance and fear. Some days he was okay. Able to accept that he was slowly dying. That piece by piece that which made him William Simons was being dismembered. Other days he found himself terrified of what was coming. Usually that was just after he'd discovered another piece of his mind had gone missing. Or when he'd woken from another incoherent daydream.

  Physically he was changing at pace. The transformation was speeding up. His skin was now completely golden in colour, and he was actually glowing. Radiating golden light. He guessed that the light was in effect a halo, except that he had thought that saints had halos and angels had wings. But then he had thought a lot of things and probably none of them were true. And at least it didn't hurt.

  The pain in his guts had now subsided though they still spent of lot of time churning away and gurgling. But as if to make up for it the pain in his back had become much worse again. It was something to do with the wings slowly growing out of his back as they pushed their way through his skin and attached themselves to his spine and other bones. Everything hurt back there. Every vertebra in his back ached even though they no longer moved or flexed in any way. His skin felt as if it was being torn apart. And the wings themselves ached too. He could feel them now. They felt almost like limbs, except of course that they were only stumps. He guessed the pain was similar to that of recent amputees.

  His maleness had gone. He didn't actually know when, he'd just discovered it a day or so before when he'd gone to relieve himself and discovered that he had to sit down. It should have upset him. It should have scared him. But it didn't. Not any more. In the end it was just another change. And unlike some o
f the others it didn't hurt and it wasn't as if he was ever going to have to worry about being with a woman again.

  He was eating like a horse, his body crying out for food day in and day out. But he was still losing weight. In fact when he stood on the scales he weighed in at just under a hundred and fifty pounds. He'd lost fifty pounds in a month. His arms and legs were like bean poles with huge muscles everywhere. His waist was at least six inches smaller than it had been judging from the way his pants hung off him. But as if to compensate his chest was becoming larger. There was also a bony growth extending from his sternum. He had a horrible feeling it was like a bird's chest, designed to have muscles attached which would help him flap his wings. Thus far he couldn't do that. He did wonder what it would feel like when he could though. And whether once they were that large there would be any clothes at all that he could wear. At present he was wearing his old jeans with a belt with half a dozen extra holes drilled into it and a T-shirt from the abandoned variety mart down the road. The T-shirt was ten sizes too big for him, and still with the bones growing out of his chest and the wing stumps on his back it barely covered him.