Guinea Pig

by Curtis, Greg

  There were other, newer changes. He had no more eye teeth. At some point they'd flattened to become pre-molars. He didn't know when. His eyes were far sharper than before, able to see things further away and strangely, he could now see different colours. Colours he simply didn't recognise. There was also something different about his lungs. About the way he breathed, though he simply didn't understand it. And his heart was beating in a whole new rhythm. Faster than before and with extra beats as well. He could feel it like a living thing within him as his blood pumped furiously. Or was that the effect of having two hearts? He suspected that it was.

  A few weeks or so before he'd discovered that angels couldn't sit. Not only was their spine too rigid to bend, their wings simply didn't allow them to move the same way people could. They could walk but not sit. And his stumps, though still only three or four inches long, also prevented him from sitting. He now had two choices: stand or lie down. Soon he knew they would be limited even further. As his wing stumps grew further he would be unable to lie on a couch or anything with a back. They would simply push him too far forward as they pressed into the seat back.

  But it was the mental changes that were the hardest to deal with. Discovering that he could no longer read or write had been a frightening experience. A shock like no other. But it hadn't been the last one. It was only the first.

  He was losing his understanding of things. Basic things. He'd found a gas cylinder for his camp stove a couple of days before and thought about bringing it back even though he didn't really cook anything except water. But even as he'd thought about it he'd suddenly realised that he didn't know what to do with it. He didn’t know how to screw it in to the stove. Or how to operate the device. Yet it was something so basic a child could do it. He believed that somewhere deep inside he still knew how to do it. But for the life of him as he'd stood there staring at it, he'd known he couldn't. And it wasn't only the stove.

  The car was a mystery to him. As he lay there staring at its remains he knew he couldn't drive it. Not even if it had been in working order. He could remember driving it. He could remember operating the machine, turning the wheel, moving the shift, tapping on the pedals. But for some reason he couldn't seem to understand why he'd done those things.

  His general knowledge was also disappearing. For years he'd been studying classical history. His thesis was on the fall of Rome, the factors that had led to its collapse. And yet these days he found it hard to remember all the details of the fall. The names of the different players. Even the names of the cities.

  His intelligence was sliding away.

  But as it vanished other things arrived. Delusions maybe. He could see people in a whole new way. When a soldier occasionally wandered down the street he saw more than just the man. More than the body and the clothes. He saw the soldier's emotions. His fear or boredom. His desire to be somewhere else, perhaps with loved ones. And he didn't see these emotions written on his face. It was something he saw within the man.

  His nightmares had grown stronger. Now he could see them all the time. Sometimes they were only faint. Sometimes they were so powerful that they were almost physical. Like things he could reach out and touch. He could see those below who cried out for his help. Who begged for him to free them. He could see those above who called out their love for him and begged him to join them. And he could feel himself struggling to fly between them. Unable to navigate the tricky eddies and currents of the wind. Unable to either rise or fall.

  As he lay there on the couch on the front porch looking out over the city, watching the impossible lightning strikes touching it every couple of seconds while black smoke once more filled the sky, Will wondered where it would end. In death, or in something worse? And would it just be his end? Or everyone's?

  Except that if his life was to end it wouldn’t be as a result of the lightning hitting him. It would not touch him. He had survived the sink hole. The ice bombs had missed him. He hadn't even been scratched by the exploding shards. The lava bombs had all missed him too. It was as though he was protected in some way from them.

  He wondered if he was being protected by the white haired woman? These days he felt her and the other white haired people all around him, though when he looked at them they were never there. Never where he was sure they were. He was almost beginning to think of them as ghosts. But they weren't ghosts. While he couldn't see them and he didn't know where they were, he knew they were real.

  A series of lightning bolts touched the top of some of the city’s tallest buildings, taking his attention away from the riddles he couldn't answer. Instead he watched curiously as bolts danced around the rooftops and the sparks flew in all directions. Like sky rockets exploding, though not in the air. It looked so beautiful, but he knew that if anyone had been on those roofs they would have been killed instantly. Electrocuted, perhaps even incinerated.

  Beautiful but deadly. Wasn't that one of the laws of nature? That the deadlier a thing was the more brightly coloured it often was as well? In which case he had to wonder just how absolutely gorgeous the next strike would be. Assuming he was still around to witness it. And if he was still around whether he would be able to understand what it was by then.

  Maybe he thought, the best thing he could do now, was to simply enjoy what he could. Before it was too late. Before he forgot how to enjoy things.

  Chapter Twenty.

  William was asleep in the back yard when the men came for him. He slept a lot these days. Mostly after he'd just eaten something. And he'd gorged himself on a whole pumpkin from a garden a few doors down the street only an hour before. He needed a nap after a meal like that.

  “William?” Will looked up to see Pastor Franks standing there in front of him. But he could see more than just the man. He could see the guilt and shame and sorrow coiled around his soul. And the horror too as he stared upon him and saw the changes that were still being wrought upon his flesh.

  Will didn't need to look around to see the reason why the pastor was feeling those things though. The pastor had come with soldiers. Even though they were hiding behind buildings, creeping up behind him, he could see them. He could see their nervousness as they feared what might be coming. As they feared him. He could see their horror as they gazed upon his twisted body. And he knew they had come with a purpose. One he wouldn't like.

  But they had no reason to fear him at least. No matter why they had come. He intended them no harm. He wished no one any harm. Not even the doctor. There was no point in it. Besides, he wasn't even sure that he could harm them. His body was so confused that he didn't even know if he could throw a punch. He didn't know if he even knew how to. So many simple things were becoming hard lately. His thoughts were becoming a fog. And a lot of the time he couldn't even be sure that what he was seeing was real.

  “It's all right Pastor. You brought soldiers with you. I know that. I don't care.”

  His words must have been a sign as immediately he spoke the soldiers started coming out from hiding. And there were a lot of them. Thirty men at arms at least. All of them had their weapons drawn, automatic rifles that he guessed would make a mess of him if they fired. They approached him in formation wherever they could, hunched over their weapons as they advanced on him, just like in the movies. Except he wasn't an enemy as far as he knew. But maybe he was. He didn't really know. All he knew was that he wasn't really human any longer. And anyone not human might well be considered an enemy.

  “Lie down on the ground and put your hands behind your back.” A soldier yelled it at him from all of ten feet away. As if he was deaf. “Now!”

  Will could have refused he supposed. He could have resisted. But he simply couldn't see the point. He wasn't afraid of these people. There was nothing they could do to him that was any worse than what was already being done. And he wasn't angry with them either. The time for anger had long since passed. So, slowly – it was difficult getting down on the ground when you couldn't bend in the middle as he used to be able to do – he r
olled off the bench and did as he was ordered.

  Instantly two or three men jumped on him and grabbed his arms. They forced them up behind his back as hard as they could and then snapped cuffs on his wrists. Two sets of heavy steel handcuffs. Apparently one wasn't good enough for him. And then they applied more cuffs to his ankles, binding his feet together with ties of steel. Two sets of cuffs again.

  It should have hurt, and it did a little. But pain was something he was becoming used to lately, and somehow it didn't really bother him. He just forgot about it. As for anger and humiliation, he didn't seem to have those feelings any more either. Maybe it was simply that he had no more pride left. Whatever they did to him simply didn't offend him.

  “Get up!” The soldier screamed it at him like a panicking mad man and Will briefly wondered if he had truly taken leave of his senses. Bound as he was he simply couldn't get up. Anyone would have understood that. But then a couple of the soldiers leapt to his side, grabbed his shoulders and simply hoisted him to his feet like a sack of potatoes.

  Then, apparently unhappy with his chains, two of them forced his hands away from his back and a steel rod was pushed between his arms and his back. A steel collar was clipped around his neck and chains between the rod and the collar connected up and tightened, preventing him from even bending his head forward. Still more chains were connected up to his wrists and his neck and soon he was leashed like a dog. Soldiers on the ends of those chains would stop him running away assuming the cuffs around his ankles failed. It seemed excessive. Even serial killers were not so well bound.

  “Pastor?”

  “I'm sorry William. Truly I am. But this had to be done.”

  And Will knew he was. He could see the regret in him.

  “Why?”

  “Because what's been done to you is also responsible for all the disasters that have been destroying the city. And the state. It's all linked to you.”

  He was telling the truth. Will could see that, even though he could see the small flickers of doubt in the pastor. Pastor Franks believed it, mostly. And Will had suspected it too. For the longest time Will had been convinced that the disasters had something to do with him. He didn't know how or why and it made no sense. But he had been sure of it.

  “How?”

  “You are unnatural. Neither man nor angel. Neither of Earth nor heaven. Reginald tried to make you into an angel but he failed. He created instead a nephilim. Once before the whole world was washed away in a flood to get rid of the nephilim. To prevent their wickedness from destroying the world. From opening the gates of hell.”

  Nephilim. Will knew that word. He'd seen the movies. But he was no monster. He had no intention of causing anyone harm. Opening the gates of hell though, that suddenly made sense to him. His nightmares, the people below, crying out for his help. He finally understood them. They were the Fallen. That at least made sense. The people above calling to him – they had to be the Choir. And if he helped the Fallen? If he released them? Would he really be opening the gates of hell? Was there such a place? He didn't know. But he did know that he might be. And that that he could not do. But one thing he did understand. The world was trying to kill him. To cleanse itself of him. That made sense.

  “Thank you Pastor.” At last something made sense and he was grateful for it. The dreams had bothered him for so long.

  “Please don't thank me.” Pastor Franks looked away, apparently unable to face him, and Will could see the shame and guilt in his heart. He didn't like that. He would have taken it away from him if he could.

  “You've nothing to feel bad about. You did what you had to. I understand that – truly. And I wouldn't have you do anything else.”

  “But this?” The pastor stared at him, seeing the chains and the soldiers.

  “It doesn't matter.” And just then it truly didn't. Will wasn't completely sure why. “There's nothing anyone can do to me that's worse than what's already happening.”

  The strange thing was that even as uncomfortably bound as he was and as frightened as he should be, William was more tired than anything else. He'd been so tired for so long. He really just wanted to go back to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty One.

  The hospital was not really a hospital any more. Not even the remains of one. It was a military compound. But then that was why it had been chosen Elijah guessed.

  Once it had been a normal hospital with front and back entrances and open access from all sides. But that was before the storms. Between the ice missiles and the lava bombs it had been devastated, and the lightning had done it no favours. Both side wings had been flattened and were now little more than three story tall piles of rubble. The back of the building was the same. All of which meant that what remained of it was only the front part of the main building. And that worked for the military. It meant that there was only one way in or out of it, and so they could concentrate their forces in front of it, knowing that no one was coming or going without their knowledge.

  They could stop anyone from attempting to do so as well. There were soldiers everywhere, forming a huge semicircle in front of the building and keeping a large open area which had once been the car park, as a free fire range. Elijah would have said that that seemed like overkill, especially when there were at least a dozen bunkers set up along the perimeter, with huge mounted machine guns in place.

  But overkill was just the beginning of what they had created. Tanks and armoured vehicles surrounded them – all of them ready to send shells into the hospital and bring the last part of it crashing down. Helicopter gunships were constantly circling overhead, all of them equipped with missiles, ready to torch the entire complex and turn the open parking lot into a fire storm should anything go wrong. And he had been told the hospital itself had been wired with charges just in case.

  And all of it was for only one man. One patient. William Simons. Or was that one prisoner?

  Whatever the bishops and the other church leaders of the various faiths had said to the government it had convinced them of one thing. William Simons was dangerous. And while Elijah understood the reasoning behind that view, it didn't fit at all well with the man himself. He was anything but dangerous. He was a victim. But the soldiers didn't understand that. They didn't care about it either.

  As Elijah watched William was all but dragged out of the truck by the soldiers, still chained as no prisoner ever had been before, and made to stand in the concrete car park while the doctors examined him. They poked and prodded him, took endless photos of him and more or less treated him like a research animal. Any thought of him being a human being with the rights of any other man was forgotten. For his part William Simons just stood there calmly, letting them perform their indignities upon him without protest. He didn't even seem to notice when they tore his jacket and shirt off him to let the doctors see more.

  “Oh sweet Lord!” Elijah was unable to contain his shock when he saw what had happened to Mr. Simons just in the last week. The terrible changes that had continued to be wrought in his flesh by Reginald's mad experiment. He'd never expected to witness such a thing. He would never have wanted to.

  It was probably a miracle of some sort. But not a good one. Not one of God's. This was a dark miracle. The sort of miracle that only human beings possessed by the thirst for knowledge and held in the grip of false pride could create.

  As the soldiers stripped him completely, something that didn't take long at all, he could see all the changes that had been made and he had to utter a quick prayer for him. These weren't good changes. They were perversions. Twists in his flesh. Crimes against his body and soul. Crimes against God. And yet, trapped within that shell of mutilated flesh was an innocent man. A soul filled with fear and confusion. And a soul he suspected who yearned for the comforting release of death. That was why William hadn't struggled when the soldiers had come for him. Why he'd accepted the chains without protest. Why he willingly suffered the indignities they foisted upon him. He was hoping that they'd kill him. He couldn
't kill himself. He couldn't bring himself to do such a thing.

  But they could.

  And maybe they would in time. In the end Mr. Simon's death was the one thing that might end this nightmare. If the bishop was right – and apparently all the cardinals of the Catholic faith and the various scholars and priests of all the others supported his view – then when Will Simons died the gates of hell would be firmly shut once more. Elijah imagined that the soldiers believed that too. Elijah wasn't sure what exactly they'd been told, but he could see the jumpiness in them that he knew to be fear.

  Had the bishop been right to spread the word of this dark crime to his brothers in the communion? And from them to his other brothers in the other faiths? And then the government? Elijah didn't know. But he feared that even if he had been right, his decision was quickly becoming the wrong one.