American Nocturne Read online

  “Please, can’t you just get these off of me?”

  None of this is real...

  “We couldn’t get a pulse, no sign of respiration. Her abdomen was swollen, like she’d swallowed a volleyball or something. The doctor was going to give it one try. He had me use a bag-valve mask and do chest compressions. He grabbed a needle to perform an abdominal tap and inserted it. Within a second of the irruption, the fumes were unbearable. I gagged and covered my mouth. The next thing I knew, I was on the floor, vomiting. The doctor, he was on the floor, too. Dead.”

  “You’re not going to get me out of here, are you? Why? Why can’t you just help me get free?”

  “Those fumes, I can’t describe them in any way that would convey what it was like. It was a chemical smell, mixed with the stench of a bowel. It felt like it went straight into my brain and started to dissolve it. If I hadn’t crawled out of that room, something I don’t remember doing, I would have probably died, too. No one was ever able to tell me what it was. The police said they were sure she was a mule, that she’d swallowed a bag of drugs and it ruptured, but they said the CDC was conducting the post-mortem and weren’t giving anyone access. Then they said the attending died of a cardiac arrest. The press reported it the way the police said, and the woman was cremated. They stonewalled me. By the time I was able to get my congressman to make a formal demand for the autopsy report, they told him it had been lost in a hard drive crash, with the physical file misplaced and unable to be located.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because, Tasha... ever since that happened, ever since I inhaled those fumes, I’ve been different. It changed me.”

  “Please, please let me go! You have to get me out of here!”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Tasha. I can’t. That’s why I came back here. To let you know. I killed him for you. I made it so that he’ll suffer. I wanted you to know that. I wanted you to know he’ll never do this to anyone again.”

  “So why can’t you just get these chains off of me? I swear I won’t tell anyone! I promise! Please!”

  None of this is real...

  “I would, on my solemn, most sacred oath, I would do anything to be able to do that. But I can’t. I’m not really here, Tasha. And neither are you.”

  The young woman choked back a sob. She shook her head like she was trying to clear dust from her hair. “What? What do you mean? Why are you doing this? Let me go! Just let me go!”

  “Ever since that incident, those fumes, I can do this. It started with just images, visions. I would touch them, and suddenly I saw them. Vaguely, but they were there. I was so confused at first, but it kept happening. I soon learned that if I touched the head, it was clearer. I also learned that the more recent the heart stopped beating, the more vivid it was. It was only through trial and error that I realized I could do this, do it this way.”

  “What are you saying? What the hell are you saying?”

  “We’re not here, Tasha. I was just in this chamber, this little hole in the ground you see. This is where I killed him. Left him chained right where you are now. Or where you think you are.”

  Tasha stared at her, her chin wagging slowly, watching with the eyes of someone sizing up a crazy person, but whose real fear was that the person wasn’t crazy at all.

  “This is what happens. This is how the brain works, I guess. It seals itself off. They always seem trapped in the last place they remember. It was months before I stumbled across how to communicate with them, with those like you. How to have more than pleading images streaming through my head.”

  “Stop it! I just want to go home! Please stop talking and let me out of here!”

  “I can’t, you poor, sweet dear. I can’t. I had to let you know, I had to tell you what I did, let you know you were avenged, that the information you were able to give me made it so he’ll never do it to anyone else. I wanted you to have that.”

  “You can’t leave me here!”

  “I won’t. But it’s not like that. This only lasts as long as whatever part of the mind this is, is still functioning. That’s why the light is so dim now. In a moment, it will go out.”

  The woman swallowed, eyes clenched like fists. “What are you saying? What happens when the light goes out?”

  “I don’t know. Honest. I would think it would be like going to sleep.”

  “You would think? You would think?”

  “I can’t be sure. I lose all contact at that point.”

  Tasha’s head pitched forward and she began to sob in fits. She looked up as if remembering something.

  “Where am I now? Really?”

  “The Waller County morgue.”

  “But I’m not ready to – wait! Why did everything just go dark like that?”

  “I’m so sorry. Time is running out. Whatever comes next, know—”

  The illumination surrounding the woman disappeared. There was nothing left but shadow.

  Marlie opened her eyes. She was standing in the small autopsy room of the county building basement again. One of the four florescent overhead lights was on, brightening the space enough for her to see but not enough to make her blink.

  The clock on the wall just above the double-doored entry read 6:09. She needed to get the body back in place, position it exactly as it had been, making sure the skull didn’t look tampered with, then slide the drawer closed and get out of there.

  Her arms ached, her elbows all but locked in position, the oblation they held pulling them down with a force many times its weight.

  She wondered, for the thousandth or maybe ten-thousandth time – she couldn’t be sure – why she was burdened with this, why this had to be her calling. The same argument in her head, one part reminding herself she didn’t have to do it, didn’t have to dispense vengeance like this; the other, more dominant part pointed out that the choice was a false one. She had to do it because she could. This was her purpose. As hard as it was, it was better than the haunting she’d endure if she had to lay awake at night thinking of all the people out there who would never know if there had been justice. All the people who might be victimized if she didn’t intervene. She would continue. She had no choice. She would continue to follow the news, to follow the patterns, to hone her craft and give whatever comfort she could to those who could get it nowhere else. This wasn’t who she had been before, but that didn’t matter. It was who she was now.

  Maybe he was right. Maybe none of this is real. Maybe it’s all just a simulation. She wasn’t sure whether that would be a cruelness, or a kindness.

  Time was slipping away. Yes, maybe he was right, but she didn’t think so. Either way, it didn’t matter. This was the only reality there was, the only one she knew. Getting caught was not an option. She stepped forward over the body, a wash of sorrow running over her as she saw the pieces, two arms, two legs. One skull. No torso. At least she would find a way to return that. Maybe at the funeral home. Maybe after the burial, if necessary.

  Oh, Tasha. I really am so sorry.

  She looked down once more at the brain she was cradling in the palm of her hands and closed her eyes again, wondering, not for the last time, if someone was watching her from afar, observing everything she did on some screen or projection, or if no one was out there at all and she was truly alone. She took a breath through her nose and placed the brain back into the skull cavity, unable to decide which prospect scared her more.

  BONUS STORIES

  Natural Selection

  PROFESSOR ANDREWS KILLED himself on a Tuesday afternoon, and by 10:00 am the next morning FedEx had delivered his instructions regarding the project.

  Adam sat in his apartment and felt the chill creep down his spine like a bead of ice water. The voice in his head, narrating as he read, was now that of a dead man. He took in a breath and held it, running his eyes over the letter several times. The professor may have wanted to give up living, but he was obviously not ready to give up control. The directive was simple and p
eremptory, devoid of any discernable sentiment. It also made little sense. Prometheus was many months – if not years – away from testing, and who knew how far back the project had been set due to the professor’s irrational behavior of late. But there it was, a letter from his late employer telling Adam to arrive at the lab no later than 1:30 pm, double-check the alignment of the reflectors per the calculations enclosed with the letter, and program the input panel with a specific alpha-numeric code. The code was set forth separately in a print-out also contained in the envelope, along with a set of keys. Adam held the programmable keys up and recognized them as the professor’s own – car, house and office. He pressed his thumb against the sensor fob of the lab key and a green light came on. It blinked a few times then stayed lit, now programmed to Adam’s bio-signature. He dropped his hand onto his lap and stared out the window.

  The last line of the missive was cryptic. I wish the choice was between men and goats, but I’m afraid it’s goats or nothing at all. Adam mulled the words over, his eyes fixed on the leaves of some nearby magnolias trembling in the April breeze. Goats. This was the second reference the professor had made to goats that he could recall. The prior one was a few weeks earlier, just as the professor was beginning to act strangely, first telling Adam he was going on vacation when Adam knew full well he wasn’t, then forcing Adam to take a few weeks off himself. The professor had already consigned Adam to the campus library for virtually all his work. Adam tried to remember exactly what the man had said, but he had been too confused at the time to pay serious attention. Some story about goats and pirates and vd, or something like that.

  The morning sun emerged from behind a passing cloud, interrupting Adam’s thoughts with buttery rays of light. So he hadn’t just been imagining it or exaggerating things. Andrews really had gone off the deep end. Really. He lowered his head and rubbed the back of his neck. On the coffee table in front of him was the letter tendering his resignation. He had sealed the envelope just minutes before he received the call. The professor’s letter arrived moments after that. Now that his opinion of the man’s mental state had proved true, it occurred to him he felt anything but vindicated. Mostly, he felt like a heel.

  There was a tone at the door and Adam touched the screen next to it, rendering the material see-through. The transparency was only one-way, though, but it would be hard to tell that from the woman on the other side, who stood there staring ahead as if there were nothing between them, arms folded, her foot tapping an impatient rhythm. Adam counted the number of days it had been. Four. Three and a half, actually. Too soon. Then again, these were unusual circumstances, so allowances could be made.

  He tapped the screen again and opened the door, leaned against the jamb. “Cassie. I’ve been meaning to call you. I guess you heard.”

  “Can you believe it?” She threw her hands up in a show of exasperation. There was an envelope in one of them. She flapped it for emphasis. “I mean, the nerve of the son of a bitch!”

  “Hey, easy now. I got a letter, too. We should try to be a little understanding. Obviously, something was weighing on him.”

  “We all have something weighing on us! I needed that scholarship!”

  Adam didn’t know what to say. He had always considered Cassie to be selfish and immature, but this kind of reaction was beyond the pale.

  “I am so mad! The nerve!” She shook her head, gritted her teeth. After a moment, she turned her palms up and hitched her shoulders, eyebrows raised. “Hello? Are you going to let me in, or what?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

  Cassie walked to the couch and let her purse slide off her arm onto one of the cushions. Adam watched her as he shut the door. She was annoying and opinionated, but there certainly wasn’t anything wrong with her body. Sexy or not, he considered sleeping with her one of the biggest mistakes he had ever made. Or potentially one of the biggest. The jury was still out. He could tell early on that the trip down that highway was definitely not worth the toll. Admittedly, that hadn’t stopped him from taking a number of trips, but there was definitely a line. The occasional weekend drive was one thing, a daily commute was another.

  “You got one, too, huh?” she said, crossing her arms. “I didn’t know. You must be as pissed as I am.”

  “Yes, I got one. It just arrived.” He crossed the room and half-leaned, half-sat on the arm rest of a beat-up recliner. “What does yours say?”

  “It says I’m royally screwed, that’s what. Now what am I supposed to do? There aren’t any other work-study positions out there. Not until next year. Ooh! I’m so angry I could spit!”

  “So you’ll have to appeal to the scholarship board. A minor inconvenience, relatively speaking. Let’s give the guy a break.”

  Cassie placed her hands on her hips. “Give the guy a break? How can you be so calm about this?”

  “I guess you could say I kind of saw it coming,” Adam said, adding little shrug. “And I suppose I feel I could have handled things differently. You know, been more supportive.”

  “Well, I don’t feel that way at all.” She held up the envelope. “So, the letter said you have the keys.”

  Adam was a bit surprised. Cassie was just an undergraduate, not even in the sciences. Her work-study position didn’t give her access to the project. Not that he knew of, at least. With the professor dead, he wondered if that mattered.

  “Yes.”

  “When do you want to head over there?”

  “He wanted me to be there at one-thirty. I’m not sure I’m going.”

  “What do you mean? Look, I really need to get my stuff.” She lifted the side of her lip in a sneer. “And maybe I’ll take the opportunity to trash the place while I’m at it.”

  “Cass, don’t you think you’re being a little childish about this? I mean, a man we both knew has taken his own life. This isn’t all about you, you know.”

  “Don’t you get all sanctimon—wait a second…” Cassie’s blinking eyes stopped on his. They flitted to his chest, then back again as she cocked her head and screwed her face into a question mark. “Who took someone’s life?”

  * * *

  “I still can’t believe Professor Andrews killed himself,” Cassie said, almost to herself. She was staring out the window of the Solarian Mini-Bus as it glided toward campus. It still carried the smell of plastic and vinyl.

  “Yeah. I know what you mean. It’s unsettling.” Adam kept his voice low. He hated the new hybrid buses. The city had bought dozens of them. Powered by hydrogen fuel cells and solar panels, they were tiny and noiseless. Unless other passengers were talking amongst themselves, a private conversation was next to impossible. The few others in the bus were silent, and had been for miles. It was usually that way. Adam wondered whether somewhere in the back of peoples’ minds, they believed they needed permission to break a silence. Cassie would like that theory, he realized. She was always suggesting such explanations, always commenting on how people have practically been bred to be compliant. He banished it from his thoughts.

  “I feel like such a jerk.”

  Adam had a different word in mind. “You didn’t know. You just thought you’d been fired.”

  “No, I mean, I feel like such a jerk because I still feel the same way. I’m still mad as hell. It’s just that now I feel bad for him, too. But I’m no less angry with him. Understand?”

  “Sure. Kind of,” he lied.

  “You know what my dad used to say to me whenever I was upset over something?

  Be a good listener, he told himself. Show some interest. “What?”

  “‘The world marches on.’ I used to hate it when he said that. Like my problems didn’t matter, so I should just get over it. But it just occurred to me that what he really meant was, nothing is ever the end of the world, you know?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought about that because Professor Andrews killed himself, and the world marches on.”

  “Just not for him.”

  “Exactly.”
/>   Professor Andrew’s lab was not on campus. Adam and Cassie stayed on the bus until it brought them within a few blocks of the building. The driverless vehicle slowed to a halt with barely a hum, gliding away as soon as the two of them were clear.

  “I still don’t understand why we didn’t take your car,” Cassie said. “I saw at least two gas stations on the way.”

  “I wasn’t sure if there were any.” The truth was he didn’t want to have to drive her home. The odds of them ending up spending the night together were too high. He had vowed it wouldn’t happen again. She slept with him so he would get her the work-study scholarship. He may not have expressly made her the offer, but it was certainly implied. The professor had left the selection process up to him, and he wasn’t shy about saying so. The sex was good, no complaint there. But the last few times they were together, there were signs of complications looming. She was starting to sound clingy, talking about weekend trips together and confiding secrets to him. He reminded himself he didn’t owe her anything. Everybody got what they wanted. Win, win. The mere thought of it made him feel like shit. That didn’t change his mind. Feeling like it was still better than stepping in it.

  “Whatever.” She dismissed his explanation with a wave of her hand. “Let’s just get my stuff. I left a couple of textbooks in there. And my gym bag.”

  Adam nodded and they continued down the sidewalk, passing boutiques and restaurants. He idly observed that the newer the building, the more old-fashioned the architecture. Satellite phones were being sold out of a Greek Revival Row House. Temperature-controlled clothing was being hawked out of a Queen Anne Seaport. He wasn’t sure whether this was due to a respect for the past or a fear of the future. Then he looked at Cassie and thought it was more likely a dislike of the present.