We Are Monsters (28 page)

Chapter Fifty-Four

This was not Eden. It had become hell.

Crosby had awoken between the cold and rigid corpses of the naked man and woman, whom he thought of as Adam and Eve. They were both perforated by swollen puncture wounds with ragged purple edges. It looked like the snake had bitten each of them at least a hundred times.

But, that wasn't the worst of it. They were sexless now. Their genitalia had been devoured by something other than a snake. The woman's chest featured two gaping wounds where her breasts should have been. The man's groin was a glistening pit.

The first man and woman would never give birth to humanity.

It was still dark outside. But there was no beauty to it now. No innocence. It was the darkness that conceals the demons who stalk the night. It was the dark that hides the shadows.

He no longer felt the omnipotent power that had filled him before. It was as if he had been drained, sucked dry by the snake of original sin. He had tried to manipulate this new reality, to bend it to his will, but had been unsuccessful. And so he was trapped in a world of his own creation, hunted by creatures that hungered for his soul.

The creatures emerged from the night. He saw them pass, lurching out of the garden and into the hospital realm. They wore human skin, but he saw them for what they really were. He had seen them in the hospital staffs' heads. But there was one whom he knew much more personally.

She hadn't come from the garden. At least, he hadn't seen her here yet. But she would walk to the border separating this world from the other one, and look inside as though searching for something. As though searching for him.

She had finally come back to find him. To erase her greatest mistake. Or, worse, to take him back home. He wouldn't let her, though. He couldn't. So he stayed hidden, deep within the darkness of the garden, under a dense thicket of bushes. Where he hoped he wouldn't be seen.

Chapter Fifty-Five

“Well, did you think to call the cops?”

Shit!
No, he hadn't.
I was too busy running from…from…

From what, he didn't know.

Alex pulled out his cell phone. He stared at the blank screen. “No power.”

Bearman and Angela both checked theirs.

“Well shit,” Bearman said. “So go back out there and use the landline.”

Alex still had his forearm barring the door. He expected the lady, the impossibly fast woman with the disfigured shadow, to test it at any moment. “There are people out there.”

“Yeah, so? Let them know we need some help. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Alex didn't know how to explain what he'd just seen. It was all too surreal. Too insane. It felt like some elaborate fantasy concocted by a schizophrenic, not the sound observations of a rational mind.

“Wait, that's it,” Alex said, an idea falling in place. He turned and pressed his back against the door, bracing with his legs. “What if we're all having some kind of psychotic episode?” He expected their eyes to light up once the revelation hit.

They simply stared back at him with the same blank expression.

Bearman shook his head, his bovine lips flapping as he exhaled in exasperation. “I ain't got time for this,” he said, marching towards Alex and the door. “Move aside.”

“Wait a minute,” Alex said. He didn't want to open the door. He was afraid to let the lady in, although he wasn't sure why.

Bearman pressed forward, getting into Alex's face. He smelled like pickled lemons; his sweat betrayed his fear. But he hid it well. His eyes were narrow slits of anger, his mouth a scowl of disdain. “This has been a complete catastrophe,” he said through clenched teeth. “And you're not doing a single thing to make it better. Get the fuck out of my way so that I can fix this. Be prepared to explain yourself when I get back.”

Alex didn't move. His mind was trying to compute too much at once, paralyzing him in place.

Bearman placed a heavy hand on Alex's shoulder and pawed him aside. He pulled open the door.

Alex tucked his head like a turtle seeking protection within its shell. He waited for the woman to storm through. Then he heard the door slam shut. He turned.

Bearman was gone. He could hear his clomping tread storming down the hall, his booming voice calling, “Hello? Where the fuck is everyone?” His voice was fading.

Alex looked at Angela. She was sitting up straight in her chair, listening, her senses at full alert.

Then, faintly, he heard Bearman's voice change, “Hey! You! Hold up there a minute! Come here!” Seconds passed, then he heard his voice again, fainter still and unintelligible. A baritone murmur felt more than heard.

Alex strained his ears, pressing his head against the door. He held his breath in silence for a full minute, but didn't hear another sound.

From behind, Angela whispered, “Alex, what's going on?”

He turned. She was the only animated face in a row of mannequins. He wondered what was going on behind those placid masks.

“Shared psychosis,” he said. “It's the only explanation that makes sense.”

Angela frowned. “
Folie à deux
?” she said, reciting the technical term for the transfer of psychosis to people with otherwise healthy minds. “But how? It happened so suddenly. And it seems to be affecting all of us. That doesn't fit the profile.”

Alex was hardly listening. He was distracted by the menacing silence emanating from out in the hall.

He's not coming back,
Alex's mind said, and his first feeling was relief. His second was shame.

“What did you see out there?” Angela asked.

Alex tiptoed away from the door as though it were a ticking time bomb that could explode at any moment. He grabbed a chair and pulled it to the open spot across from Angela. When he sat down it felt like he'd unloaded two hundred extra pounds.
I'm not meant to be in charge,
he thought wearily. All he wanted to do was rest.

He told her about what he had seen, the abandoned nurses' station with the discarded cups and warm coffee. The two women in the patient's room. His descriptive abilities were incapable of relaying the severity of the nurse's burns, or her apparent ability to see despite her marble eyes. He told her about the third woman whom he had encountered. The one with the cold eyes that blazed in the darkness like blue flame. He struggled to explain why he had felt threatened by her.

“She started running towards me,” he said, although that wasn't really true. She had calmly walked at a sprinter's speed. She had defied physics.

“Who were they?” Angela had begun glancing at the door and picking at the cuticle of her thumb. She pulled away a strip of skin without noticing, and it began to bleed.

“I think they were hallucinations.”

“But, then, where is everyone else? Why isn't there anyone to help us?”

Alex turned to Eli. He would know how to help. He motioned towards him with his head. They both looked at his vacant face.

“Where did
you
go?” Alex said to Angela. “What did
you
see?”

The only sound in the room was Angela picking at her nails. Her eyes welled up, and she blinked back tears. “I can't explain it,” she said. “I don't think I even want to talk about it. Not yet, anyway.”

“I think we need to. It may help us figure this out. Offer some kind of clue.”

Angela straightened in her chair. She raised her head a bit higher and stopped fingering her nails. “I was molested as a child,” she said, looking frankly into Alex's face. “By my uncle who was a Catholic priest. It went on for several years, until we moved away.

“I thought I had left it behind when it ended. I tried to block it out. But I guess I carried it inside. Deep within my subconscious.

“That's where I went. I relived my molestation, but in a far more elaborate and nightmarish way.”

Alex had often wondered what Angela harbored from her past or was like in her personal life. The piercings, the dyed hair and arm ink suggested an alternate persona, but she had always been a consummate professional at work. It made sense now.

“I didn't know,” he said, fidgeting.

Her eyes left his. They seemed to gaze inside. Then she took a deep breath, her chest inflated, and she appeared confident and composed. “It was horrible. Like a dream, but real. A true living nightmare. But also cathartic. I feel better somehow. Like a thorn has been plucked from my psyche. I can't explain it. There's no possible way.”

“You don't need to,” he said. “I experienced the same thing.” He attempted a smile, but it quivered and felt false, so he stopped. “Well, different, but the same in that it felt real.”

She watched him, waiting for him to go on. After several false starts, he did. “I was in a prison somewhere. Bearman was there. He was the head guard locking me away. I was put in a cell with Devon. You know, the…”

Angela nodded. “The orderly who attacked Jerry.”

“Right. But he didn't kill him. He couldn't have. I saw him here as I was rushing out to help Rachel, while Jerry was still alive. I was his alibi, but I didn't say anything. Let's just say that he wasn't very happy to see me. He nearly beat me to death.”

Angela scooted forward in her seat. “Wait. Then that proves it.”

Alex cocked his head. “What?”

“That it was a dream. You don't have any bruising. There's no sign that you were beaten.”

He hadn't thought of that. He pressed his fingers against his face and felt no pain. “That shouldn't come as a surprise. Clearly, what we experienced was some sort of lucid dream or psychotic break.”

“But I've never had a dream that felt so completely real. Not even close.”

Alex closed his eyes, remembering. “Me either,” he said.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, relieved by the lack of pain, and continued, “My wife and father came to visit. They told me that I had been convicted of malpractice for testing my experimental medicine on unauthorized patients.”

“But you had Bearman's permission. You had the support of the board.”

“For Crosby, I did. Not for—” He cut off, realizing that he hadn't told anyone else about administering the medicine to Jerry.

Angela gave him time. Then gently… “Who?”

He tried to hold her eyes, but couldn't. He cowered into his hands. “Jerry.” It was little more than a whisper, which quickly evaporated into the utter silence of the room. The air between them thrummed.

“I treated Jerry, and he got better. One hundred percent better. He was back to his old self. There were no negative side effects that I could detect. But he died before we could make any definitive conclusions.”

A flush had crept up Alex's neck. It sat there and burned. “He was there too. In the cell with me, covered under a blanket like a corpse in a morgue. He was…in the dream, or whatever it was, he was dead. His throat cut.” Alex dragged his thumb across this own throat as though slitting it.

Then he stopped speaking in the monotone voice of remembrance, focusing more intently on each word and its implications. “He told me that the medicine was responsible for his death. He accused me of ‘conjuring his killer'. He said something about how the medicine opened up the mind. Something about how there was still time to create another world.”

He rapped a knuckle atop the table and leaned back. “I don't know. It seemed to make more sense at the time. Sounds crazy now.”

He looked up and winced when he saw the anger in Angela's eyes.

“On Jerry? You experimented on your own brother? Why?”

And then he felt angry himself, at Angela and her accusation. At himself. “Because there were no other options. He's been sick for half his life. He had just been dismissed from Sugar Hill for having another episode. And here I have a way to help him. What, am I supposed to hold out on my brother? Just because of some regulations made by organizations that care more about profits than patients? No, fuck that.”

“Is that why? Or did you see an opportunity to fine-tune your formula without having to report the outcomes to a regulatory agency?”

Jerry's pale face flashed back from the prison cell.
“You…meant to…get rich… You…meant to…get respect… You didn't…think of…the consequences… It was…at my… expense.”

The memory brought Alex a sensation of physical pain. Pain from fighting against the truth.

He shrank in his seat and slowly nodded his head. “Yes, that too. It was both. It was. I did it for personal reasons. For money. For prestige.”

Angela leaned forward. She looked more excited now than angry. “So you were harboring guilt, if only subconsciously. Which is why in your dream sequence you were sent to prison. You were being punished for your crimes. And then you take a metaphorical beating for the wrong you committed against Devon, and are given a second chance by Jerry to make amends for experimenting on him.”

Alex's chuckle contained as much humor as the rattling of chains. “I'd say that's a workable theory. Pretty fucking obvious when you lay it out like that. But,” he said, scratching the back of his head, “that doesn't explain what caused it.”

“But you already said that. Folie à deux.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he said. “I suppose it could have been transferred by Crosby. But you're right. I don't see how it could have happened instantaneously and affected so many people at the exact same time.”

Angela began picking her cuticle again. It sounded like a clock ticking.

They both glanced at the door, feeling a shared sense of dread. Bearman had been gone a long time.

“There is a connection, though,” Alex said.

“Between?”

“Jerry and Crosby. They were both administered a refined version of the formula, and both have been subject to unexplainable experiences.”

Angela nibbled her thumb, gazing inward. “Right,” she said. “What was it that Jerry said in your dream? You conjured his killer?”

“And now…you've conjured…yours.”

“Yes. And Rachel also experienced some kind of hallucinatory spell during the murder. She was convinced it was Devon who came and killed Jerry, which we know is impossible. She also claims to have—” He stopped.

“What?”

Alex sighed. “To have seen her dead dog. The one I ran over.”

Angela groaned, but it was more from confusion than revulsion. “So what do we do now?”

What would Eli do?
“I wish they would wake up.”

“How would that help?”

“Strength in numbers.”

Angela stood. She stretched her arms overhead, rising up onto her toes. She looked like a cat waking up from a nap. “We can't just stay in here. We've got to get help.”

“That's what Bearman's doing.”

“Well where did he go? He should be back by now. What if he's fallen back into that dream state?”

What if he's been killed,
Alex thought.
By what? His imagination?

Alex stood and stretched as well. Then stopped, wincing. He had almost pulled a muscle. “What if he ran into those women,” he said, rubbing his lower back.

“So what if he did? They're just hallucinations, right?”

“You…conjured my…killer.”

“Yes. They have to be.”

Angela came around the table and stood next to him. They both stared at the door. “Then what do we have to be afraid of?” she said.

Alex didn't answer. He took a tentative step forward.

Angela followed.

Before he knew it, his hand was grasping the door handle. He pulled open the door on the empty hallway beyond.