by Brewin
A fire. A multiple murder. A dream. A nightmare that was real. A wife and children. A life now denied to him. A career. A dead-end. Nothing made sense. Everything seemed beyond his control.
And now he stood at a crossroads. He had no idea which way to go, nor an inclination to care. He sat down on wet grass against a telephone pole, watching his weary breath trail off in mist.
Darkness called...
“I’ve been waiting for you,” said a voice in his mind.
Who? What? Where am I?
“So many questions and so little time. What do you care?”
I do care! What’s happening?
“What do you care if there’s nothing you can do about it? Your fate is sealed. You will all die soon. There is no hope, so give up now.”
No. No I can’t. I must keep fighting.
“You tell yourself that, but look at you. A miserable wreck that can’t even keep his family life intact, let alone keep a job or an easy fuck happy. What hope do you have?”
What is this voice in my head? Am I completely fucking mad?
“Yes, you are. And no one will believe you. You are on your own and no one will help you.”
End this! If it’s all in my mind, I must be able to stop it!
“You can’t control your emotions, so what makes you think you can control your thoughts? Especially when they are not YOURS.”
Oh God, please make this end!
“Praying to your pathetic absent God already, are we? I haven’t even started with you yet. Watch how easily I can manipulate your every thought, emotion and desire... ”
A suffocating fear enveloped him, irrational, uncontrollable. The urge to run away screaming was overwhelming, but he could not – his muscles were paralysed. Unable to move his lips, he began to gag on his tongue.
“So easy, so vulnerable. You think yourself so advanced, but look at you now, helpless in the grip of fear. Hahaha.”
Fits of coughing shook him, vomit swamped his mouth and spilled down his shirt, but still he could not move.
“I am going to destroy you, Brian. First I will destroy everything you have and have ever sought to attain. Then I will destroy all hope and thought in that useless brain of yours. And then finally, I will destroy you and all your kind.”
Why?
“Because we are the dominant species now. Your extinction is imminent.”
Darkening room... Growing darker.
Light fades... Shadows merge.
Evil lurks... Creeping closer.
A sudden chill... Grips my soul.
Am I conscious? All is dizzy.
Where is body? Mind is bending.
Something’s calling... Overwhelming.
Falling into darkness... Never-ending.
DAY TWO
10th April, 1989
MONDAY 12:58 AM
An eternity passed.
He opened his eyes again and the dark returned, like fractured memories of a dream.
He lay naked on cold stone. Red glimmers of light, dogged by adept steps, moved past him like fireflies. Guttural murmuring followed them, echoing throughout cavernous walls. The stench of filthy beasts assaulted his senses. Fear gripped him.
He shuddered aloud and heard something turn to face him... Claws scraped stone, red eyes scanned the darkness.
He held his breath...
May the darkness keep me safe!
Something crept closer.
There was a low growl and then sniffing.
I dare not even swallow.
It paused.
His heart screamed in his head as he fought to contain his breath. He looked for an escape, but could see only darkness. His breath would last but a few seconds longer.
Something grunted and rushed towards him...
And darkness returned.
MONDAY 7:15 AM
Dawn struck like lightning, illuminating the darkness.
Somewhere there was the reek of vomit. Traffic drove past the roadside he lay on. Then he remembered.
Brian broke into a fit of coughing, convulsing forward into a sitting position. Somehow, it seemed strange to be...
Alive.
How strange that word was when he was sure he was as good as dead anyway. Squinting against the emerging light of day, he looked down to see his hand half-submerged in a pool of lurid, smelly mess. He cringed from his creation.
Fuck, I hope no one’s recognised me. I’ve gotta get out of here.
Brian rose, wiping his hands on his trousers. He realised he had a great need to empty his bladder.
Well, at least I didn’t piss myself.
Running a bandaged hand through his matted hair, he noticed his headache was gone. Instead, he felt a dull throb in his wounded hand. He looked down at the bandages a moment.
Yesterday’s events seemed impossible. He must have cut himself in the car somehow. No other explanation was plausible.
He shivered involuntarily and looked at his watch. It was time to head home.
There were many questions he had to find an answer to, but first he had to find a secluded spot to piss...
The temporary relief he felt didn’t compensate for his weariness. A full day lay ahead and it felt like he hadn’t slept at all.
He needed a holiday.
Brian dawdled his way back home, dwelling on what he was going to say to Sasha when he got there.
“Sorry honey, there’s just these demons running around trying to kill me and everyone else. I’m sure it’ll all blow over.”
Nah, somehow that just won’t work.
A maroon sedan rolled past. The driver noticed a wreck walking along the footpath.
Is that Sergeant Brian Derwent?
Nah, couldn’t be.
He drove on.
In no time, Brian was walking up the path to his front door. And still he didn’t know what he was going to say, or how he was going to cope with the day ahead.
His mind on autopilot, he rang the front door, forgetting he had keys in his pocket.
Sasha answered the door fully dressed, glaring at him. “Where have you been?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“What do you mean? What happened? You look like shit!”
“Yeah, I feel like it too.” Brian put a foot inside the front doorway.
Sasha stepped aside, holding the door. “Brian. Tell me what’s going on.”
Brian looked at the clock on the wall in the hallway. He’d have to leave in half an hour to be at the station on time.
“I only wish I knew,” he said.
“Brian, tell me what’s happened! You still haven’t told me anything!”
Brian closed the front door as school children passed outside.
“Believe me when I say you don’t want to know.”
“Like fuck!” she screamed and pushed Brian into the wall. “You get called out yesterday to the murder, come home and pass out in your car, you can’t tell me how you cut your hand or what happened at the farm, and then as soon as you’re awake you go out last night and don’t come home!”
Brian held up a hand. “Sasha, Sasha, listen-”
“No, you listen to me! You could be in serious danger or having an affair for all I know! I could be in danger, or someone else! I’ve hardly slept since you didn’t come back home, I’ve had Julie and Sergeant McDougall on the phone, both wanting to know how and where you are and I didn’t know what to tell them! Do you even care? How can we be together if you won’t even fucking talk to me!”
Brian looked up from the floor into Sasha’s eyes. “Is there anything else you wanted to add? You seem to be on a roll.”
“Fuck you!” She thumped his chest and stormed off towards the kitchen.
Maybe later.
Brian felt acids burning his empty stomach and oesophagus, and his headache returning. With some effort, he followed her.
“Sasha honey.”
She picked up her cigarettes from the kitchen table and stuck one in her
pouting mouth. “Don’t you Sasha honey me.”
As she paused to light a cigarette, Brian took the opportunity to continue. “Honestly, I don’t know what’s happening. I keep having these visions and passing out. Like in the car yesterday when I got home, the same thing happened last night while I was out walking. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but it’s got nothing to do with the investigation. I’ll know a lot more about that today when I go to the station, which is where I have to be in half an hour-”
“You’re gunna go to work? You need to go to a doctor!”
Brian reached for her cigarettes. “I’ll go this afternoon. I’ve got too many other things I have to sort out first. Then we can talk.”
She rolled her eyes and turned away to make a cup of herbal tea. “Whatever.”
“Sasha, until then I can’t really begin to explain what’s happening. It’d take too long and I don’t understand it yet anyway.”
Sasha kept her back turned to Brian as she poured her tea. Brian imagined the anger building inside her.
She turned around without making eye contact and walked past him towards the lounge with her tea.
“Well, I’d better call Douglas anyway. I’ll call Julie later when I get a chance,” he said.
The door to the lounge slammed shut.
MONDAY 9:04 AM
Something was wrong.
Chris Gamble rubbed his eyes and stretched his arms before looking again down the microscope.
The cells had no nuclei like all mammalian blood cells and yet they also contained mitochondria, unlike any known animal blood cell. And they were far too large, complex and interconnected to be anything resembling bacteria.
And then he noticed something else... The mitochondria were definitely moving.
The cells were alive.
Chris jumped away from the lab bench and ran a shaking hand through his hair.
Cells organised together that were still alive in a solution of formaldehyde, bearing no resemblance to any known organism on a molecular level were... Alien.
I’ve discovered something extraterrestrial! But wait... What will this mean for the investigation? For his life?
I’ve got no choice but to tell David, my superior. Otherwise, sooner or later someone else will see what he’d found and question why he hadn’t raised such an anomaly earlier.
I hope David knows what to do.
Chris found forensic pathologist Dr David Dawson with mortuary technician John Taylor downstairs in the ‘homicide’ autopsy room. David and John were wearing white lab coats, forensic masks and gloves. The pair had been working on the bodies of Barney and Frank Weston since late last night. The naked body of Frank Weston lay with the chest cut open on a lipped metal trolley under the glare of a lamp. On a nearby trolley, various dissection tools lay in neat rows next to organs in plastic bags on green surgical towels. The body of Barney Weston, a ‘crispie’, lay in a sealed body bag on a trolley across the room. The air was thick with the sweet miasma of burnt hair and flesh.
“You’re not going to believe this,” Chris began.
David suppressed a yawn and looked up from his gruesome work. “What have you found?”
John looked at Chris with raised eyebrows and a smile. “Your brain?”
Chris answered David. “It’s hard to say what it is.”
“Yeah, I’ll say!” said John laughing.
David ignored John. “What do you mean, Chris?”
“I’ll have to show you. Trust me, it’s something I’ve never seen in my life. And if it’s what I think it is, nor has anyone else.”
David’s face went deadpan. He put down his tools and walked around the trolley to where Chris was standing.
“What are you trying to say?” David said.
“The sample taken from under Frank Weston’s fingernails contains blood cells that don’t seem to be of any animal, let alone of any human.”
“Surely Chris, there must be some mistake. They must be bacterial cells or–”
“David, I checked the sample again and again to be sure of it myself. Not only do the cells lack nuclei, but they contain organelles I presume to be mitochondria, which are still active in a formaldehyde solution!”
“Still active now?”
“Well, a couple of minutes ago when I left the lab, yes.”
“I have to see this.” David turned to John. “John, you can continue with things here or take a break if you like.”
“I might as well keep going, Dave. I wanna get home and get some sleep!”
“Good idea. I’ll be back soon.” David led Chris out, closing the door to the ward behind them.
John, alone now, turned back to Frank’s body and shuddered.
Frank’s head, attached to the body by muscle tissue only, rested on his right shoulder, staring at John with dead eyes. He didn’t recall the corpse’s eyes being open or the head being placed in such a way.
Now I’m imagining things! Must be lack of sleep.
John moved the head back to a more normal position and closed the eyelids. As he did, he thought he saw one of the legs twitch. He jumped back from the body.
What am I doing? Bodies don’t move so long after death. This is really getting to me. Good thing no one else is here to see me freak out.
John looked again at the body and thought about the find that Chris had allegedly just made. The cells were still alive.
Maybe I will go take a break until the others get back...
John rushed outside, resisting the temptation to run.
Dr David Dawson was on the phone to Sergeant Brian Derwent, head of the investigation into the deaths of Barney and Frank Weston.
“I know it’s a way for you to come to the Institute of Forensic Pathology here in South Melbourne, but it’s really important that you see this before anyone else does.”
Behind David, Chris wrung his hands nervously.
“Today if possible.”
David looked at Chris and nodded.
“After 2pm is fine. Just go to reception and they’ll page me.”
As soon as David hung up, Chris spoke, “What are we going to tell him?”
MONDAY 10:30 AM
“So what can you tell me?”
Sister May Kennedy sat with Oberon Grammar School Principal Lucas Prescott in the cafeteria of Howqua Hills District Hospital. She placed a cup of steaming coffee on the table before her. “Weeell, he had a CAT scan of his brain done this mornin’...”
“And?”
“And the radiologist couldn’t find any signs of physical trauma.”
“Oh, thank goodness for that!”
“And he couldn’t find any abnormalities or tumours in Danny’s brain either.”
“What a relief!” Lucas leaned forward. “That is good news!”
May raised an eyebrow. “Weeell, although we haven’t found any signs of physical injury, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t any. We need to do more tests. And even if there is no physical damage, the incident may have triggered a psychosis, or some other mental disorder.”
Lucas frowned. “I see... How are his spirits since last night?”
May nodded and took a sip of her coffee. “Yeah nah, much better. There’s been no sign this morning of psychotic behaviour. He’s even been cheery.”
“No hallucinations?”
“No, nor any delusions. However, he had no recollection of last night.”
“Does he remember anything else?”
“Yeah nah, he’s recalled everything up until passing out when the truck almost hit him. We also assessed his reflexes and cognitive skills and took a blood test. The blood test is being analysed today, but everything else looks fine, at least on the surface.”
“That’s quite a recovery since last night!”
“Yeah maybe. We’ll know more after he’s had a psychiatric assessment.”
“When is he having that?”
May looked at her watch. “Since about ten minutes ago.”
/> In a single ward devoid of decorations save a pastel-coloured painting of the Australian bush, Danny lay reading a history textbook. No drip was attached and no restraints held him. No curtain partitions surrounded him and no nurse sat by his side. Sunlight streamed through the window to his left as footsteps approached the open door to his right.
Danny looked up as a stocky, bearded man dressed in slacks and a brown cardigan entered the room, bearing a briefcase. He wore a thick set of glasses and had a crop of grey hair drawn across his pink scalp.
“Hello Danny. My name is Bernard.”
Danny smiled. “Hello Bernard Russell.”
Bernard stopped.
How did this kid know my surname?
Bernard sat on the chair next to Danny’s bed and placed his briefcase down. “I’m a psychiatrist and I’m here to–”
“Help me,” Danny finished for him. “Aren’t you going to ask how I knew your name?”
“Well, I could ask–”
“It’s on your ID badge. Nice photo.”
Bernard looked down at his badge a moment. “Ahhh but Danny, you couldn’t have been reading it when you said my name. I was too far away.”
Mental note: Subject displays faulty reasoning or deceptive behaviour. Possible Personality Disorder.
“Many things that seem far away are in fact not at all,” Danny answered.
Better get the tape recorder on.
Bernard reached into his briefcase. “Danny, do you mind if I record this conversation? I can assure you that the recording is kept strictly as a private and confidential discussion between us, except in cases where there are serious concerns about harm you might do to yourself or others. The recording is primarily to save me needing to take notes.”
“And it makes it easier to analyse every word I say,” Danny replied.
“Yes.” Bernard laughed. “But only so that–”
“You can help me with my illness.”