Robert W. Walker (12 page)

"We've got more to worry about than
Wisnewski
at the moment. The whole city is going up for grabs."

"Take me to Bellevue. I've got to see
Wisnewski
now."

"I was sent here to bring you to Nathan, and that is what I'm going to do."

"Bellevue first, and then, as soon as I see the old man--"

Perkins pulled a .38 Smith & Wesson and
lay
it on his lap. "Dr. Stroud, you may pull a lot of weight in Chicago, but this is New York. You're going to see the C.P."

Perkins escorted him into a conference room where Nathan was discussing the state of affairs with the mayor and City Council. There were some perfunctory introductions before Stroud saw that Dr. Kendra Cline was also here. James Nathan told the others that Dr. Stroud was one of three archeologists who had gone into the pit to investigate the sunken ship.

"He is also the only man to have gone into coma induced by this ... this disease, and has come around," added Nathan. "Dr. Cline can speak more to that if you have any questions."

"Am I to understand that you have some natural immunity to the disease?" asked the mayor, a tall man with thinning gray hair and a wide girth. He had the look of a man who was playing poker with thieves and he knew he could not win.

"I never went into coma, Mayor. It was merely a blackout. Dr. Cline can verify that."

Kendra Cline pursed her lips and nodded. "It would seem that that is the case with Dr. Stroud, from all our findings."

"Then you never contracted the disorder in the first place?"

"No, sir."

"But Leonard did, and Dr.
Wisnewski
."

"In a manner of speaking," said Nathan. "Dr.
Wisnewski's
aberration took the form of madness."

"I am told he attempted to murder me with a pickax," said Stroud. "But that was not Dr.
Wisnewski's
doing."

"He was surrounded by witnesses, Dr. Stroud," said Perkins.

"Since I've come out of what Dr. Cline had taken for coma," said Stroud, "I have been attacked twice by ... by these
controlled
people. Dr.
Wisnewski
was not acting out of madness but
control
. Something is controlling this entire event."

This caused a general stir throughout the room. The mayor stood and paced the length of the table. "Dr. Stroud, do you have any idea what this ... this something is that is in control?"

"Only that it is beyond our normal reckoning, sir, and that without
Wisnewski's
help ... with Dr. Leonard gone ... I'm not at all sure we will understand what we are dealing with until it is too late."

"What do you propose, Doctor?"

"First, I would like Dr.
Wisnewski
released into my custody, and any and all objects that we brought out of the pit be returned to us for complete examination under controlled conditions--"

"You want us to release a man who attempted to murder you, into your custody?" asked one of the men seated around the table, but the mayor raised a hand and silenced him.

"Go on, Doctor."

"Under my guidance and care, perhaps Dr.
Wisnewski
and I can carry on with our original plan to defuse this situation."

"And what does that amount to, sir?"

"First and foremost, we must understand the enemy, understand the meaning of the ship ... how it came to be here, why.
To understand the meaning of the ... of the bones inside her hull."

"Bones, like those you brought out?" asked Nathan. "Those were human bones."

"Exactly."

"I don't like it," said the deputy mayor, the man the mayor had silenced moments before. "Suppose
Wisnewski
attempts to kill Stroud again, and succeeds? And suppose the papers got hold of that, and--"

"To hell with the papers and your office, Dennis!" shouted the mayor. "This ... this is war. We've called in the National Guard, and we've declared martial law and a curfew." The mayor's face had gone red, but now he settled down again. "Stroud had Leonard's backing,
Wisnewski's
backing, and despite what some of us may have read or heard about Dr. Stroud, he appears our only hope in this matter. Whatever Pandora's
box
we've opened, a bazooka shot to the ship isn't going to close it, or restore the faculties of some nine hundred to a thousand people who've succumbed to this thing."

"Then you will accept my recommendation, sir?" asked James Nathan. "That we give Dr. Stroud carte blanche on this matter?"

"Up to a point, Nathan ... Stroud ... up to a point.
We need results, and quickly. We need to show the public that we are acting
to ward
this thing off. To this end, Dr. Cline will assist you, Dr. Stroud, in any way she can."

"What?" asked Cline, taken totally by
surprise.
"Mayor Leamy! I don't work for the city of New York, and I am needed at St. Stephen's. I've got patients and tests and experiments to oversee."

"Dr. Wallace has already dispatched two of your colleagues to take over your duties," said Mayor Bill Leamy. "We've got to pursue this thing aggressively and from as many avenues as are opened to us, Dr. Cline. To that end I want you to monitor the progress of Dr.
Wisnewski
, and to give assistance wherever possible with this special approach. Is that understood?"

Stroud saw that she was fuming beneath the nod. "I will do what I can, but I won't take responsibility for the consequences."

"Good ... good," said Leamy, taking a deep breath. "Wiz is an old and dear friend of mine. I think it is time, Dr. Stroud,
Nathan, that
you go to him."

Arthur
Wisnewski's
frustration rose and rose and rose as he beat his head against the padded door to the chamber the demons had thrown him into. He feared their return, feared what they intended for him once they returned, feared they intended to feed off his body as if he were a cockroach for them to swallow, so horrid and vile was their crablike appearance, and the thing that Stroud had become--so hideous that
Wisnewski
had felt his heart grip itself and squeeze as the blood suddenly pumped through his small body and he had lifted the pickax to dismantle the monster Stroud. The next time he saw Stroud, he would kill him.

He knew Stroud for what he was now ... knew that his true name was
Esruad
and that
Esruad
was to be destroyed. He didn't know what the name
Esruad
meant, other than its inherent evil. He had never heard the name before, but something in his mind triggered the explosive hatred for what was below Stroud's mask.

He had been screaming for them to bring Stroud to him for hours. Even with his hands tied, he would find a way to kill Stroud, he promised ... promised
himself
? No, not himself ... someone else, but he couldn't recall who.

He had rammed the door continually since finding himself here. He recalled very little of the tortures the bestial, vile things that were his captors had done to him; he felt no pain, only an enormous disgust and hatred for them--for all of them--but for Stroud in particular. Stroud was their wizard, their leader.

"Use your spittle on
Esruad
," a voice inside his head kept telling him. But what good would spit do against a creature of Stroud's enormous strength and those bulging fangs and lower teeth like a wild boar, his body crawling with living parasites feeding over him.

"Spit," commanded the voice inside him.

Wiz did so, splattering the padded door with
a burning
brown syrup that sent up a smoke cloud. The smoke curled about the chamber, getting thicker and thicker, the feathers and tick inside the pads turning the smoke into a thick, ugly black cloud that made
Wisnewski
cough and cough and cough until it finally set off an alarm. The bells exploded in his ear and the door was thrown open, two of the vile creatures, their boars' heads heaving,
their
tentacled
limbs reaching for him and gaining hold.

"Stroud!
Bring me Stroud!" he called out as they forced him through the choking smoke and outside.

"Spit! Spit on them!"
came
the voice within.

But
Wisnewski
suddenly felt dopey, dropping to his knees as the drug from the hypodermic sent him under. The last thing he felt was the hideous hands of the monsters grabbing him up by the middle, his arms still strapped tightly about him, alarms sounding in his brain, drowning out the voice there.

Later
Wisnewski
awoke in another white, empty, padded cell. On the floor beside him was a huge globule of the syrupy liquid he had spat out at the pads in the other room.
Wisnewski
felt drained, weak, woozy and confused. He tried desperately to remember who he was and where he was ... what had happened to him ... why he was in a straitjacket.

His mind felt like a blank tablet and when he looked at the reinforced glass window in the door, he found people staring in at him as if he were a lunatic.

He fought to regain his mind, his memories, but they were fleeting, as if they'd only been stains wiped away with a washcloth. Who was he? Where was he? Who were his jailers?

He felt that a deep chasm inside of him had been opened up, and somewhere in the void
was
his identity and the events that had brought him to this place.

"Where am I!" he shouted at the eyes staring in at him. He got up, rushing at the eyes. "I demand to know who you are and where I am! Who's in charge here? I want to talk to whoever's in charge!"

But the eyes just stared in, locked on him as if watching a bug and quite fascinated with the useless dance he was doing before they might squash him.

Angry, frustrated,
Wisnewski
rammed his small body again and again into the door, pleading for help, but nobody came...

-7-

The scene at Bellevue was chaos, the halls littered with more zombies than they had beds for. People were beginning to get nasty, their natural pity for the dummies around them turning into loathing, fear and hatred. Doctors and nurses were working night and day in what seemed a useless effort to keep up. Dr. Cline was angry, seeing the suffering and feeling that she ought rather to be in her laboratory, that every moment that passed was opportunity lost. She was quite unhappy being in the company of Nathan and Stroud.

They stood just outside the padded cell where Dr.
Wisnewski
was now. "He's a strange one," said the orderly, a large, powerfully built man who looked capable of crushing
Wisnewski
without even knowing it.

"How has he been?" asked Stroud.

"Very unruly ... kicking at the door ... shouting to be released."

"Open it up," said Stroud.

The orderly said he had no authorization to do so. Nathan flashed his badge. "We've cleared it with your superiors. It's out of your hands, Mr. Gilliam."

"Well, if you say so.
Your funeral."

"Open it," said Stroud, who had brought the bones from the pit with him in an open box. "The rest of you wait here," he told them.

Nathan took exception to this, saying, "Stroud, he's got a straitjacket on, but he still has teeth, so..." and he offered up his gun.

"No, I won't need that."

Perkins offered to go in with him.

"No, I have to do this alone."

Kendra Cline said, "Maybe you're the one who's mad, Stroud."