Biblical (31 page)

“Okay … here we go,” Hudson sighed. “For a moment I thought we were discussing something credible and worthwhile.”

“You want to do something quality, Jack? That’s what I’m giving you. Have you heard the rumor about the book or not?”

“I’ve heard it. Pure crap.”

“Maybe so, but the fact is that fragments of the manuscript have been found – buried deep in the Internet. They’re supposed to be from Astor’s book, the book Tennant got hold of before he starved himself to death. But the really big thing is what this manuscript is all about. The earthquake that never was in Boston, and all of the other stuff that’s going on all around the world – people having visions, seeing ghosts – in his book, Astor is supposed to have predicted them happening.”

“Come on, Tony – you know all kinds of conspiracy nut are all over the Boston thing. Everything from aliens to the CIA to the Illuminati to secret Nazi mind-weapons hidden deep beneath the Antarctic ice. In fact, there’s one website that claims it’s all of the above working together.” Hudson shook his head. “Sometimes the intellectual power of our great nation leaves me humbled.”

“Well, while all of these conspiracy theories are the usual …” Elmes struggled for the right word.

“Apophenia,” Hudson helped him out. “The tendency to see patterns and connections between things where there are none. Joining up dots that aren’t there.”

“Apophenia,” Elmes repeated. “Is that a word? Anyway, all of that crap is going on and it’s confusing the real issue, which is that we’re not getting the whole story. These hallucinations are happening all over the world and they’re getting bigger
and worse. The story is that this Astor manuscript not only predicted exactly what is happening, but explains it. And it’s that explanation that’s supposed to be so momentous and terrifying that it drives you mad.”

“You said yourself that the fragments that have been found have been on the Web … how do you know it’s not just some geek making it up as he goes along? Post-rationalizing events after they happen?”

“This isn’t the first time Astor’s authored a mysterious work with a restricted circulation. In the nineteen-sixties there were rumors of another book called
The Last Mortals
. It’s supposed to be linked to the latest manuscript
and
there was a rash of suicides connected to it, just like with this one.”

“You believe all this crap?”

Elmes sighed. “I believe there’s enough in it to warrant an investigation, at least. Are you interested or not?”

“In my time, I have exposed political scandals, humanitarian tragedies, war crimes … do you really think that I’m going to take on some half-assed conspiracy theory bullshit like this?”

“I take it that’s a no?”

“That’s a no.”

“I really don’t think you can afford to say no to any project at the moment, if I’m frank, Jack.” Elmes pushed the red file across the table to Hudson. “Do me a favor … at least read through the information first, then give me an answer.”

Hudson regarded Elmes for a moment. Despite what he wanted to believe about the younger man, he was sincere. A good kid. A good kid who shouldn’t be his boss, but was. Hudson stood up, picking up the file from the table.

“I’ve already given you my answer,” he said. “But I’ll take a look.”

*

Jodie Silverman was waiting for them in the hallway with a tablet PC tucked under her arm. Or more correctly, she was
waiting for Elmes and largely ignored Jack Hudson’s presence. Silverman was dark-haired, attractive without being exceptional, with a good figure smartly dressed. She was the kind of studio pussy that Hudson had bagged by the dozen, back in the day. But things had changed: attitudes, mores, even regulations about workplace behavior. And Hudson wasn’t the man he had been. Silverman was one of those edgy, flinty, chipon-the-shoulder career bitches, but that didn’t stop Hudson speculating that Elmes was maybe fucking her.

“Hello Jodie,” said Hudson. “You’re looking lovely today.”

He laughed out loud when she ignored him.

“We’ve got a production schedule meeting at eleven,” she told Elmes. “I’ve brought your notes.” She tapped with a varnished nail the tablet PC she held. “You okay?”

Elmes had stopped his progress along the hallway, a strange expression on his face, his posture almost unsteady. “Whoa … I just had the most weird feeling of déjà vu …”

“Not again …” Hudson laughed at his own witticism. Silverman didn’t and he thought about how she really, really needed to get laid.

“You okay, Tony?” she asked again.

“I’m fine,” Elmes said. “But that was weird.” He shook his head and gave a small laugh. “I’ll let you know if I start having visions.”

“Visions?” asked Hudson.

“Boston Syndrome – that’s the way it’s always supposed to start, with déjà vu. Or so they say.”

“Well, try to hallucinate a project for me that’s worth doing.”

“That’s what I’ve just given you, Jack,” said Elmes in a tone that warned Hudson he was pushing his luck a little too far. Elmes stopped again. “Do you smell something?” he asked.

“Other than corporate bullshit, no …” Hudson said.

“I’m being serious … Do you smell burning?” “Burning?”

Silverman became suddenly alert and sniffed at the air. “No … I don’t smell burning.”

“Me neither,” said Hudson.

Elmes remained silent for a moment then again shook his head. “I was sure I could smell burning. It’s gone now.” They started along the corridor again and reached the elevator hall, a wide, bright space about twenty feet square. The two side walls were floor-to-ceiling glass, looking out over Midtown Manhattan. “I’ve got to go to this scheduling meeting, Jack. Promise me you’ll give that –” he tapped the red file Hudson held “– the consideration it deserves. We’re going to be doing something on it, one way or another, and I’d really rather that it was you at the helm.”

“I said I would look at it and I will. But I think—”

“Don’t say you can’t smell that?” Elmes cut him off, looking around the elevator hall anxiously.

“I don’t smell anything,” said Hudson.

“Me neither …” Silverman looked anxiously at Hudson, then back to Elmes.

“You’re kidding …” Elmes sniffed urgently at the air and began pacing the hall, scanning the corridors leading to it, examining the elevator doors. “How could you not smell that? It’s getting stronger. Shit … something’s burning somewhere.”

“I don’t smell a thing …” said Silverman, her groomed corporate composure gone.

“Do you smell it? Tell me you smell that …” Elmes turned to Hudson, waving a hand to indicate the air around them.

“Take it easy, Tony …” Hudson stepped forwards and placed his hand on Elmes’s shoulder; the younger man shrugged it away, looking at Hudson as if he were mad.

“Christ … Christ … something’s on fire …”

“Calm down … There’s nothing. Take it easy …”

Suddenly, Elmes backed away, shrinking back and pressing himself against the wall opposite the elevators. “Look! For fuck’s sake, look!”

“Look at what?” said Hudson, who then turned to Silverman. “Get someone! Get a doctor.”

“The smoke!” Elmes began coughing. Scrabbling his way along the wall as if trying to escape something the others could not see. “What the fuck is wrong with you? We’ve got to get out of here … We’ve got to get out of here now!”

“Jesus … look at his eyes!” Silverman said. Hudson could see the producer’s eyes all right: red, inflamed, streaming with tears. Elmes started to cough uncontrollably, to splutter, saliva sleeking his lips and dangling in viscous threads from his mouth, his face red. He tore desperately at his unbuttoned shirt collar, as if it was strangling him.

“I told you to go and get a fucking doctor!” Hudson yelled at Silverman, who backed away, her gaze fixed on the gasping Elmes. “Go!”

She turned and ran.

Hudson stepped forward and grabbed Elmes by the shoulders. “Listen, Tony … you’re having some kind of attack. You’re seeing things. Jodie’s gone to get help … in the meantime, try to stay calm.”

“You’re mad! You’re crazy! We’ve got to get out of here! Look!”

“Look at what?”

“The flames, for Christ’s sake! The fire! Jesus! Jesus!”

“Tony, there’s no fire …”

Elmes shoved his colleague away violently, causing him to fall backwards. When Hudson got up, he saw Elmes extend his arms like a blind man, his wide-open, streaming eyes unseeing. His coughing was now constant, wracking, and he seemed to fight for every breath.

Silverman came sprinting back up the corridor with an over-weight, shaven-headed man in a white short-sleeved shirt and black pants.

“There’s an ambulance on its way …” The security man stared unbelievingly at Elmes. “What’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know, but stay back … he’s violent with it.”

Still Elmes stumbled around, patting his way along the wall towards his colleagues who watched, ready to grab him should he fall.

“God …” said Silverman. “It’s like he’s gone blind …”

“Help me!” Elmes yelled desperately. “For God’s sake help me!” He began stamping his feet, performing a bizarre dance as if trying to shake something loose from his legs. His eyes were wild, watching something terrifying, something monstrous, that only he could see.

He screamed. A scream like no other that Hudson had ever heard: a high-pitched, inhuman whine that was no longer about fear, but about pain. Falling to the floor, Elmes began writhing, clawing, convulsing – all the time to the terrible music of that inhuman scream. He flailed and tore wildly at his clothes, kicking and twisting on the polished floor.

It was then that Hudson and the others saw it happen.

Elmes’s skin – on his face, on his hands, on the chest laid bare by his frantic tearing at his shirt – turned crimson. It bubbled and peeled, then began to blacken.

“Jesus!” said Hudson. “He’s burning … He really is burning.” But there were still no flames, no smoke, no signs of combustion outside Elmes’s tortured body. The scream became something else: a thick, treacle gargle. Now they could smell the overpowering, sickly sweet stench of Elmes’s roasted flesh.

Hudson turned to the security man. “For Christ’s sake get a bucket of water.”

“But there’s no fire …”

“To throw on
him
, you idiot.” Without the slightest idea what he could do to help him, Hudson dropped the red file he’d been carrying and rushed forward to kneel beside where Elmes lay on the floor. He was no longer convulsing: his movements were small and tight. His skin was gone, the exposed flesh a mix of red raw and black crust. The thick hair on his
head fizzed and crackled to sparse patches of blackened wire. Hudson could see gray-white subcutaneous fat bubble and boil. Eyelids gone, Elmes’s eyes were shrunken, desiccated. No more movement. Hudson tried to check for a pulse but drew his hand back as if stung, the blackened flesh hot and burning his fingertips.

He straightened up and watched as the now dead Elmes curled up into a blackened gargoyle, the contraction of driedout tendons drawing up his legs, twisting tight his arms and making claws of what was left of his fingers.

Hudson heard Silverman retching and the security man’s voice: sounds that seemed to come from a million miles away. He was also aware of distressed, alarmed voices as others from the building gathered behind him.

“What happened to him?” the security man asked again.

“I don’t know …” said Hudson. “I have no idea. I thought he was having one of those hallucinations, but this was no hallucination. Spontaneous combustion, maybe … but I thought that was a myth. No one has ever actually documented it …”

“That was no fucking myth …” said the security man. “That was real …”

Hudson realized the security man was right. It was the only thing that made sense. Hudson was confused, in shock, disbelieving. And what added to his disbelief and disgust was the way a single thought penetrated all of those feelings. A thought that was unworthy of him, unworthy of anyone.

No one has ever actually documented it. If only I’d had a camera crew with me.

When Corbin called Walt Ramirez from his office, the CHP officer apologized for the short notice but explained he was planning to fly in the next day, and asked if he could interview Deborah when he got in, perhaps seeing Macbeth after that.

“You’re in luck,” said Corbin. “I’m at McLean now with Dr Macbeth. I’ll put him on.” He handed the phone to Macbeth, who made arrangements with Ramirez.

“You okay with me sitting in?” he asked Corbin when he handed back the phone.

“Sure. Like I said, I’d value your insight and I don’t think we’re there yet with a diagnosis. Anyway, this connection with Melissa means you have a personal interest and I have to admit I don’t like cops interviewing patients during treatment.”

“Ramirez sounds okay,” said Macbeth. “Has the FBI been in touch?”

“The FBI?”

“Yeah. I was approached by a Special Agent Bundy—”

“An FBI man called Bundy? You’re kidding me …”

“We had a cozy tête-à-tête in the back of his car the other day. And it’s not just his name that you would remember – he has very striking eyes: the most defined case of central heterochromia I’ve seen.”

“I can honestly say I’d remember any visit from the FBI, far less one from someone with dual-colored eyes and a serial-killer surname. What’s his interest?”

“Cults. Fringe groups. John Astor.”

“There’s a connection?”

“It would seem Bundy believes there is, but I told him he was way off base with any idea that Melissa would be involved with a cult.”

“The Melissa you knew, John. The Melissa Debbie knew seems to have been a very different person.”

Macbeth nodded glumly as the press snapshot of a relaxed and happy Melissa with Samuel Tennant flashed in his recall.

“What about the WHO team?” Corbin changed the subject. “You going to collaborate with them?”

“As much as I can. The Copenhagen Project demands all of my time. And my boss, Georg Poulsen, sure as hell raised a lot of objections to me coming to Boston in the first place, even though I’m here on Project business. He’s made it very clear he wants me back on Project One as of yesterday. I’m telling you, he’s got to be the most driven man I’ve ever worked with, almost like he’s got some personal as well as a professional stake in the Project.”