Buck Fever (22 page)

Porter nodded and the two departed through separate doorways.

Chapter 39

G
eorge Montagno leaned to survey the stalks of grass before him. He chewed several; they tasted similar to the grain kernels in the barn he grazed on yesterday. He struggled to translate his surroundings into lucid objects. An unrecognizable barrage of iconic experiences emerged related to each item he saw and tasted. He did not have a reference for the dark grass. What was it? Why was it different? Did it make others sick? His curiosity and focus on the stalks overwhelmed his senses. The observed world seemed grey, only shades of grey, and no color.

Shh
. He became still. His ears perked.
Danger
, he thought.
Stay still.
Listen
.

Straight forward, he stared over the stalks of grass to the edge of the woods a far distance away. A large upright animal stood looking away. A stream of water extended from the middle of its body. The smell repulsed him. The animal appeared vague but familiar—why?

A flash of memory matched the animal to another he had seen some time ago. The other animal carried a long object. This animal had a similar object propped by its side. The icon of a rifle crossed his mind.
I have a reference for that object, but not sure what it is
.

A memory surfaced: the object made a loud noise. He remembered his mate falling to the ground, the danger surfacing when he nudged her, and how quickly he ran further into the woods to avoid a similar fate.

Animal must die. Animal must die
. The emotional thought engulfed his mind and body. What did it mean? His muscles suddenly tightened, quivered, then exploded into action.

The standing animal tried to react.

Montagno lunged with precision to grab the animal’s right foreleg before it could render the long object forward. He missed the foreleg and chomped onto the appendage protruding from the center of the animal’s body. He tore it off between his teeth and flung his head sideways releasing the object into branches of a nearby pine tree. With continuing momentum forward, Montagno raised his head slightly impaling the animal. He carried the animal several feet as its legs flailed. It made a loud screeching noise. He slammed the animal into a tree and it slid from his antlers to the ground.

Its dead; I’ve killed it.
Montagno struggled to understand the emotional turmoil churning within his brain. Words entered his mind: Hew Man. He had seen these words across the back of a similar animal who was swinging a strange object against a tree. He drew his right front paw across the dead grass and dirt and crudely scrawled the words next to the dead animal.

A sense of satisfying revenge rushed through his mind. He raised his front legs, pranced, snorted loudly to let others know the danger had passed, then leaped into the woods.

~ ~ ~

The feeling of bounding through trees faded as another world overtook his thoughts. His eyes opened as a nurse adjusted a new needle into his left arm. He yelled, but no sound resulted, just a gurgle of air and mucus.

“Dr. Grace, he’s coming around,” the nurse said, wincing into Montagno’s wide-open blood-red eyes, lightly dabbing the fluids off a bandage covering a tube into his neck.

“Whoa,” the doctor said, surveying Montagno’s forehead. An inch-wide red rash slanted upwards from each eyebrow to the hairline.

“Makes him look like the devil, and with those red eyes...ooh,” the nurse said. “He made a loud snorting sound before opening his eyes. No other sounds or actions prior, though, other than the usual roaming eyeballs while apparently dreaming.”

“Aha. Are those reporters from the Times still in the waiting room? I want them to see this.”

“Don’t we have to respect his privacy?”

“No time for rules, they can help me.”

“Whatever you say,” the nurse said, and walked out of the room.

Chapter 40

A
n elderly woman entered the waiting room looking frantic. “Where is Katie Kottle? When can I see my little girl? How is she?” She lifted her hunched-back body and clutched onto Porter’s left arm as he greeted her. She pushed him away briefly and asked the question again to a nurse sitting behind a glass protection wall. She spoke into a small microphone. Porter stood by her side, consoling her.

“Are you her mother?”

“I’m Ida Kottle, her aunt and adoptive mother. Her real mother passed away when she was twelve years old.”

“Okay, please complete the privacy form, and have a seat. She’s resting now. The doctor needs to brief you before you can go in. Should only be a couple of minutes,” the nurse said, pointing to a stack of papers and disposable pencils outside the glass.

“Miss Kottle, I’m sure she’s in good hands. Let’s sit over there, and I’ll fill you in on the events of the past few days. Maybe you can shed light on some puzzling dreams she’s been having lately.” Porter grasped the woman’s arm and directed her to a bench in the rear of the waiting room away from others.

~ ~ ~

“Oh, my Lord, she’s finally come to grips with it,” Ida Kottle said, after Porter explained Katie’s recent obsession with an imaginary twin sister named Rachel.

“Rachel has some meaning in her life?”

“Rachel is...ah, was...her real twin sister. Did Katie ever tell you about the man in the car with the Barbie dolls?” Ida Kottle asked, holding a tissue to her nose.

Porter nodded. “She’s told me the story many times. It has certainly affected her psyche. I can only imagine the terror she felt after almost being abducted, especially after she got older and understood the potential consequences.

“What you don’t know...she was with...her twin sister...and...” Ida Kottle struggled to continue. Tears appeared, rolled down her cheeks, streaking heavy makeup. “That day, Rachel was abducted, and Katie managed to escape the man’s grip by punching him in the face. Rachel was never found. It killed her mother. Katie never accepted what happened and denied ever having a twin sister.

“Aw, God,” Porter muttered.

“Katie gave the police an excellent description of the man. It made the front page of the larger Michigan newspapers, and TV news carried it as well, but neither Rachel nor the man was seen again. I’ve always felt she was better off not knowing about her sister.”

“What about Rachel’s clothes and play things? Didn’t Katie wonder whom they belonged to?”

“Her mother hid all pictures and evidence of Rachel as a way of coping herself. The clothes fit Katie perfectly. Therefore, it was easy for Katie to block Rachel from her memory. I’ve wondered when those memories would surface again., poor dear.”

Ida Kottle dabbed her eyes as she read the privacy document. She slowly penciled her name and date at the bottom, searched her purse for her driver’s license, and handed both to Porter

Porter took the document and license to the glass window and inserted them into a scanning device. The nurse received an exact copy on the other side, reviewed it and waved. The original document rolled out into a waiting paper shredder and decontamination pail, the license passed through a separate slot filled with ultraviolet light back to Porter.

Dingman stood next to Ida Kottle and introduced himself as Porter returned.

“When can I see my darling Katie?” Ida Kottle asked Dingman, who looked to Porter for help.

“Soon, they said, real soon.”

She wiped her eyes and sat bent forward on the metal bench.

Porter stood up and leaned toward Dingman. “I’ll fill you in later. So what did Pillbock have to say?”

“He got a call from Bob Sanguini in West Branch. Apparently, Lickshill
is
missing. His family came into the funeral home yesterday after we left, wanting to schedule a memorial service. The director found the casket empty. A complete search of the premises revealed nothing. The sheriff was called in. They suspect Sulkin removed the body yesterday afternoon. He was overheard making threatening statements to an employee that the government was after him and he needed to hide his research.”

“Consistent with his squirrelly behavior on the helicopter this morning.”

“Pillbock wanted a step-by-step accounting of what we have done so far to pursue the story. He showed genuine concern for Katie’s health and welfare, though. Anything she needs, just call him. That, my good man, is what makes him shine above every other boss I have had in this business—a caring attitude—look and learn. He is probably on the phone right now haranguing Dr. Grace about her care.”

“Gentlemen,” a nurse said, approaching the two reporters, “Dr. Grace has requested your presence. Please follow me.”

“See,” Dingman said.

“We’ll be back in a couple of minutes, Miss Kottle,” Porter said.

She weakly nodded as the two men turned away to follow the nurse.

Chapter 41

T
he head nurse escorted Dingman and Porter into the glassed observation booth attached to Montagno’s room. Dr. Grace greeted them on the other side. A nurse stood near a bed sheltered behind a translucent curtain. Orange-yellow light from the afternoon sun glared off the brushed stainless-steel walls casting a halo around the nurse’s face and mysterious shadows on the curtain.

“Whoa,” Dingman said, “I feel a religious experience coming on.”

Porter let out a nervous giggle.

“Not far from the truth,” Dr. Grace said, his voice projecting through a small ceiling speaker. “Tell me what you see when I pull back the curtain. I want you to observe Mr. Montagno’s face. Don’t think about what you see, just give me your first impressions.”

Porter and Dingman glanced at each other, raised eyebrows in unison, and watched as the doctor walked forward to Montagno’s bed and held back the curtain.

“Bloody bugger,” Dingman said.

Porter mumbled, “Ah...I see—”

“A horned devil, eh?”

Dr. Grace returned the curtain and stepped back to the observation window.

“I’ve seen a similar face before, but where...maybe in the movies.” Porter said.

“Look familiar?” The doctor held up an open book containing pencil etchings and old Germanic text.

“That’s it. What is this book?” Porter inquired.

“
Devils and Demons: A History of Witchcraft
written in 1875 by a Dutch immigrant doctor living in Salem, Massachusetts. He was a witness at several local witch trials. Supposedly, one of the women described her meeting with the devil and provided this drawing: A picture of a man with projections coming from the temples just above each eye like horns. I’ve located some additional books related to the witch trials, plus recent speculative research completed by a U-of-M doctoral candidate as part of his thesis.”

Porter retrieved his notebook and began sketching Montagno’s face from memory.

“Does Ergot play into this?” Dingman asked.

“Ah...yes, Ergot poisoning was described as a possible influence on the women of Salem. And, I’ve found evidence of an Ergot derivative in the blood stream of the patients who ate diseased deer meat. Where did you hear about Ergot?”

“You mentioned it earlier in the briefing room. Also, from one of your patients, Mort Sulkin, the mortician from West Branch. He had recovered grain from one of his cadavers, a Gordon Lickshill, who was impaled and killed by what appeared to be deer antlers. The grain contained evidence of the Ergot fungus.”

“Lickshill? One of the TV reporters mentioned him. His body is missing?”

“Correct. Supposedly, Sulkin was conducting pathology tests on Lickshill for the Ogemaw County Medical Examiner and might have been experimenting with Ergot. We heard it could be used to derive a substance similar to LSD. We talked to him twice in the past week. The first time he seemed normal. The second time he had significant red marks on his face and seemed a bit strange—bizarre, actually.”

“Aha, aha, aha,” the doctor repeated, nodding resolutely. “Requires a hydrolyzing agent, but possible.”

“Hydrazine?” Dingman inquired. “Our contact in West Branch stated Sulkin had ordered Hydrazine and other mysterious chemicals last week.”

“Hydrazine plus some specialized lab equipment? You gentlemen are just what I need to complete our investigation and determine probable cause and effect of the disease. I need someone to document all of the cases, while I run tests and treat the patients. Your reporting skills would be perfect for what I need. You would have to follow me around for two days; wear hospital garb and be decontaminated, though.”

“Wouldn’t that be a conflict of interest? What about privacy concerns? I’d rather stay independent to get the full story here,” Porter said.

“He is not very experienced in these things,” Dingman said, “I am sure we can help, if...you give us exclusive rights to break the story.”

“Don’t you have trained staff to take notes and create reports? We’re not scientists; we’re liable to leap to conclusions with minimal facts. You know, to get the story worth telling,” Porter said. His body shifted, becoming nervous. The thought of decontamination led him to believe he might be at risk.

“You mean you don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story?” the doctor said, laughing. “Don’t worry, you won’t be asked to do anything immoral, illegal or life threatening. I need someone who can observe with me and explore causes beyond the facts.”

“‘Please suspend your beliefs to explore the impossible,’” Dingman said, remembering the unusual statement printed on the podium in the briefing room they occupied earlier.”

“Aha. You got it.”

“We can suspend our beliefs, eh Porter?” Dingman said, winking.

Porter hesitated. “I guess.”

“Great, see the head nurse; she’ll give you proper forms to sign: usual disclaimer and waver of liability by the Control Center if you’re observations don’t always align with the facts and—”

“And, you get sued,” Dingman said, chuckling.

“Yes, however, it will allow the Times to publish related stories without directly tying us to your conclusions.”