by Andrew Mayne
“Miss O’Mallory?” she whispered.
April heard something that sounded like a whimper. “Mary? Mary O’Mallory? Is that you?”
A soft voice answered. “Yes.”
April could hear crying. She walked over to the edge of the cot and sat down. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry to hear about Albert.” Hearing the sad voice gave April a reason to be more confident. She needed to be strong for the other woman.
“Why won’t anyone believe me?”
“Believe you? How do you mean?” asked April.
Mary sat up in bed. She looked at the outline of April’s face in the dim light. “Who are you?”
“I’m a friend. I want to help you. What did you see that people won’t believe you?” asked April.
“I don’t want another ice bath. The doctor says I can’t leave until I convince him that I imagined it.”
“Imagined what? I promise you I won’t tell the doctor.”
“Promise me you’ll find Albert?”
“I’ll do my best.” April thought it best not to mention the cap Smith had found in the gutter.
“Poor Albert. First the trouble on the John Jackson, now this.”
“What did you see?” asked April gently.
She felt Mary’s lips close to her ear. “Promise you won’t say that I said this to the doctor? I can’t take another ice bath.”
“Promise,” said April.
Mary whispered into her ear.
“Are you certain?” April wasn’t quite sure she actually understood what the woman had told her. She pushed it to the back of her mind.
“Quite. Will you keep your promise?” asked Mary.
April nodded. She reached into a pocket and pulled out the vials Smith had given her. “I need you to do me a favor. Do you remember the smell when you saw it?”
“A horrible smell. I’ll never forget it.”
“I want you to smell these and tell me if either one reminds you of the scent.” April opened the first vial and handed it to the woman.
Mary pulled the vial near her nose. “That’s nasty.” She handed the vial back.
“Was that it?”
“No. A little but not it. What is that?”
April shook her head. The vial only had a number marking on it. “I don’t know. Try this one.” She handed the other vial to her.
“Oh good lord! That’s it! That horrible smell! That’s what it smelled like!”
“Are you certain?” asked April.
“Yes. Like I said, I’d never forget. That’s what the serpent smelled like.”
Serpent? April didn’t know what to make of that. She’d still been holding on to the idea that it was a madman out in the fog preying upon people. Perhaps a mortician or a man driven mad by the chemicals from one of the scores of tanners and processing plants throughout the city. But some kind of animal? Smith’s notion of a hunting pattern started to make sense.
April put the vials away in her pocket. Mary leaned in closer to her and started sobbing into her shoulder.
“There, there. My friend and I will get to the bottom of this, and we’ll see to it that the doctor lets you go free.”
“Put him right, will you?” begged Mary.
“Yes. First I need to get out of here. We’ll send someone to collect you.” April got up and checked the door. It was securely locked. She pressed her head up against the glass and tried to look down the hallway. She could make out a desk at the far end with a nurse reading under a gas lamp.
“How’s you friend going to get you out of here?” asked Mary.
April reached into her pocket and pulled out a small glass cylinder. “He told me to give this a shake and then place it in the window so he could see where I was.” April shook the cylinder and it began to glow bright green.
Mary looked at it from the edge of her covers. “That’s a clever thing.” The cylinder illuminated her features in green light. “But I don’t have a window.”
April looked up at the bare wall for the first time. “Oh dear.” Good thing she’d told her aunt not to wait up.
Chapter 10
An hour later, April was trying to figure out a way to get out when she heard a key in the lock. April threw the cylinder under her pillow and jumped into her cot. A man’s silhouette appeared in the doorway. She pretended to be asleep as he entered. She could hear the sound of a chair being pulled into the room and the door shutting behind him.
“Well, well, Miss Malone. It looks like you’ve gone adventuring where you shouldn’t have,” said an unfamiliar voice. “I’m going to enjoy asking you questions about the man you call Smith.”
April remained perfectly still.
“What is that odd light coming from your pillow?”
She could hear his footsteps as he walked over to the head of her cot. A hand reached under the pillow and pulled out the glowing cylinder. She opened her eyes and looked up as the man appraised the bright green chemical inside. The man was Dr. Lindestrom, the doctor from the police station.
“A chemical firefly of some kind? Very curious. His talents could be put to such better use.” He tucked the cylinder into his pocket and sat back down. “Before we begin a more clinical form of questioning, I’ll start off in a more cordial manner.”
Three blocks away, Smith walked out the side door of a warehouse and stepped into the dark street. His lantern could barely pierce more than a few dozen feet. As he turned to lock the door behind him, he heard the sound of a carriage come to a stop.
A deep voice called out to him. “Mr. Smith, we’re placing you under arrest.”
Smith turned around and saw the outline of two police officers in the fog. He could see two more on the paddy wagon behind them. “Arrest? For what?”
“For the assault of Mr. David Evans. We also have a warrant to search these premises,” said a gray-bearded police sergeant to Smith’s left.
Smith looked over his shoulder at the building. “You won’t find much anything interesting in there.” Smith looked to his right as another carriage pulled up. A man in a tattered suit was at the reins of two very emaciated horses. The carriage looked equally old and worn. He could hear flies buzzing around the back. It smelled rotten. “What’s that all about?”
The sergeant turned to the other police officer, a brutish-looking man with a sneer. “I don’t see nothing. Do you see anything, Dobbins?”
The other man shook his head. “I dunno, Flintwick. I think Mr. Whatever-His-Name is a bit delusional. Seeing things. Hearing voices.”
“Plain crackers,” said the sergeant. “Just like the doctor said he’d be.”
Smith grinned. “Oh, this is brilliant. I get it. I’m supposed to be the maniac. And you clowns are the task force? Very clever. How much are you being paid?”
The sergeant hit his nightstick into his palm. “We can do this the gentle way or the rough way.” He pointed to the back of the paddy wagon. “Hand us your keys and step inside.”
The brute to Smith’s right pulled a gun from his holster. “Lindestrom said we could wound you if we had to but nothing fatal.”
“Well that’s a relief. I have a low tolerance for pain.” He took his umbrella from his elbow and pointed to the fly-ridden carriage. “And who are they? Those can’t be the missing people, are they?”
“Witnesses, you might say,” said the sergeant.
“I’m guessing there’s an empty pauper’s graveyard somewhere?”
“You’ll know soon enough,” the brute said with a chuckle.
“We have very different senses of humor, you and I. Fine, I’ll go with you and explain everything to the judge. I’m sure a man of reason like him will understand what’s going on here.” He set down his lantern. “Let me give you my keys,” he said as he passed the umbrella to his other hand.
An orderly strapped April into a gurney in the middle of an operating room covered with either rust or blood stains on the wall. Leather straps were cinched around her wrists and ankles. She fel
t her skin chafe. Dr. Lindestrom sat on a stool in the corner just out of the light from the hooded gas lamp on the ceiling.
“Your employer is a very interesting man. I’m sure you must have a thousand questions yourself,” said Lindestrom as he gestured for the orderly to leave.
“I mind my own business,” said April.
“Do you know how old he is?”
April stared at the ceiling.
“Seventy, maybe eighty. Could be much more. Doesn’t look a day over thirty. And how do you suppose that’s possible?”
“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” April stole a glance at the door. She wanted to know more about Smith but was unwilling to betray what little she knew.
“Oh, plan on it.” Lindestrom waved a hand toward the door. “He’ll be arriving here soon on a stretcher like yours. I’ve been waiting for this opportunity for quite a long time. It’s very fortuitous how the recent unfortunate events have played out this way. Indeed.” He walked over to April and brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. “Such an attractive thing, youth. What would you give to hold on to it?”
April turned her head away.
“It’s a silly question to ask a young person at the height of their beauty. You can’t value what you don’t appreciate.” Lindestrom massaged a knuckle. “It’s the little things you notice at first as they stop cooperating. A creaky bone here, a persistent ache there.” He sat back down in the shadows.
“People pay a lot to hold on to what you take for granted. Kings and queens have thrown away entire empires in search of something that will help them linger just a little longer.” He swept a hand around the operating room. “To be certain, science marches forward. But too slowly for most of us. I may be an unethical man to you, but a hundred years from now I would seem a saint. That’s how these things work.
“I used to deliver children once. I loved it. The smell of newborns. Watching life climb into this world. Not like creating a life, like you can in your womb, but it was wonderful to be a part of it. But then .... But then the stillborns and the mothers who couldn’t make it that passed away. It got to me. Life became something else. The threads were too thin. I looked for ways to make them stronger. I believe your acquaintance knows. What kind of man keeps a secret like that from the rest of us?”
“I know less than you,” said April. “The missing people, is that because of you?”
“An unintended side effect,” said Lindestrom. “One we had no reason to expect. It’ll pass soon enough and things will go back to boring.” Lindestrom massaged another knuckle. “I understand your aunt isn’t feeling well. There are remedies for her condition.”
April looked at the man skeptically. She was about to ask how he knew this and then she remembered that David had met her aunt. David was clearly Lindestrom’s spy.
“There are other remedies, Miss Malone, the kind doctors aren’t aware of. That’s my specialty. Unusual treatments. Something might be done for your aunt if you were a bit more cooperative.”
“I don’t know what you want,” said April. “I’ve only known this man less than a day. I don’t know anything about him.”
“What do you call a man who doesn’t age? What’s the name for someone who spends his days deep in a basement?”
“Lucky? Eccentric?” replied April.
“There’s another word. One that comes from central Europe,” said Lindestrom.
“Oh please. You’re madder than anyone else here.”
Lindestrom bolted upright and slammed his hand on the metal gurney. “THEN WHAT WOULD YOU CALL HIM!”
April froze. Lindestrom’s eyes were filled with anger. His breathing was heavy and his hands gripped the edge of the gurney like talons. He leaned his face in close to hers. She could smell the makeup he had plastered over his skin. His breath was hot and smelled acidic. “Miss Malone, there are a hundred words for it in a hundred different cultures. None of them tell the whole story, I’m sure. There’s probably a more scientific, rational explanation than what we would think. But the problem with science is that there are so many questions so much bigger and mysterious than what we understand. And not enough time!”
Lindestrom threw up his hands. “Maybe you don’t know anything. Soon enough I’ll have the opportunity to go through his precious building and, if need be, take apart his precious body to find out what I need.”
“On whose authority?” demanded April.
Lindestrom shot a finger at the ceiling. “On god’s authority! On man’s authority! On my own!” He grinned at April. “Do you know what happens to the criminally insane in this town? They come under my responsibility.” He reached a cold hand under her dress and grabbed her ankle. “The insane and their accomplices.” April recoiled as she felt his bony fingers massage the back of her leg.
They both looked at the door when they heard the explosion.
Chapter 11
The first mistake the police officers had made was not throwing Smith into the back of their police wagon as soon as they saw him. The wiry-looking man didn’t seem like a threat, other than the chance that he might talk them to death.
The second mistake was not taking his umbrella from him as soon as they could.
The third mistake was not stopping him when he pretended to pass it from one hand to the other.
While he looked trapped as he stood between the policemen and the wall of the warehouse, his confidence should have told them otherwise.
“Oops,” said Smith as the umbrella opened. “Let me fix this.” He reached to the thick shaft and gave it a click.
What a clumsy man, thought Flintwick, Dobbins and the two men behind them. The driver of the wagon filled with corpses just picked at his teeth with a rusty nail he’d found on the ground.
“There we go,” said Smith as he looked at the men. “What’s this?” He looked down at the lantern he’d set by his feet. He nudged it forward. His body receded into the shadows. “Whoops!” said Smith as he kicked the lantern at Dobbins.
Flintwick ran toward Smith and got a face full of smoke and fire. “Damn it!” he screamed as he ran away, trying to put out the fire on his mustache.
Dobbins fired his gun into the smoke and shadows. After he stopped firing, the other policemen ran to encircle the front of the warehouse. They waved their billy clubs in front of their lanterns as they searched through the smoke and fog trying to find any trace of Smith.
Dobbins reached the door. It was still firmly closed. Flintwick, mustache singed but no longer ablaze, walked back.
“I don’t think he went in there,” said Dobbins.
“Kick it in!” screamed Flintwick.
Dobbins fired at the lock and then shoved open the door with his foot. The four men entered with their lanterns. Although it was pitch black in the shadows, it was hard to ignore the fact that in the lantern light the warehouse appeared to be completely empty.
“Look for another exit!” commanded Flintwick as he rubbed his face.
“I don’t think ....”
“Now,” he screamed as he smacked Dobbins on the ear.
The orderly outside the operating room looked up from staring at the floor when he heard the explosion. In his mind, he was fantasizing about having the chance to pay special attention to the attractive young woman Dr. Lindestrom was with.
He turned his head and saw a cloud of black smoke rolling through the hallway. A strange amplified voice called out from the other end of the floor. “Where is she?”
Thompson stood there for a moment, unsure what to do. He was too frightened to move. Behind him he heard the door open as Lindestrom peeked out.
“What’s going on?” he shouted.
Thompson walked to the corner and peered around. Two red eyes were visible in the smoke. He could hear footsteps in the smoke and the sound of doors crashing open. The strange voice called out again. There were shouts and screams from the rooms on the secured floor as the voice grew closer.
“Go find out, you fool,”
screamed Lindestrom from the other end of the ward.
Thompson grabbed a lantern and ran into the black smoke. He saw the red eyes emerge from a room. He could vaguely see the shape of a large man.
Thompson set the lantern down and unlocked a cabinet to his left where the fire ax was kept. He pulled it free and ran toward the shape. The red eyes turned on him. He brought the ax down on the figure. Its left hand punched the handle and it splintered apart. The ax head made a clang as it hit the figure’s shoulder and fell to the floor. Thompson reached out to grab the shape. There was a bright flash of light and then Thompson found himself on the ground. His muscles couldn’t move. The two red eyes were inches away from him.
“Where is she?” shouted the figure.
Thompson was speechless from fright.
The figure placed a hand on his chest. Thompson felt an intense pain.
“WHERE IS SHE?” demanded the voice.
“Down the hall! Operating room!” said Thompson as he wet himself.
The figure pushed him flat to the ground and walked toward the operating room.
April looked at the door as Lindestrom ran out of the room. He turned toward her before he left, the blood gone from his face. “This isn’t the end of it!” He locked the door behind him.
April pulled at the restraints on her wrists. She tried to get a hand free, but it was too tight. She could hear footsteps approach as black smoke seeped in under the crack between the door and the floor.
The steps reached the door. She could see two red glowing eyes through the small window. Suddenly, the door flew away from the frame and there was a large silhouette of a man in the doorway. His large eyes glowed bright red. They turned toward her.
April let out a scream.
The figure walked into the room, the black cloud of smoke following him inside. He reached the edge of the gurney. Gloved hands reached out and ripped open the straps holding her down.