Pete Venero was known as the "The Barrel".  He was made.  It meant that he was a member of the East Coast Commission.  Venero had his own family, which, though small by Mafia standards, was powerful and respected.  With the trouble that happened in Philadelphia back in '93, nobody was secure.
      Pete "The Barrel" was built according to his name.  But he was all muscle.  The name came from the shape of his chest, which looked like a weight lifter's.  He never worked out or did any exercise but he was in excellent condition.  He was thirty-eight, young for a man with such power.  Black hair and blue eyes made him an oddity amongst Sicilians.  A notorious womanizer, Venero was feared more for wife stealing than for his fifty soldiers. 
      The terrace windows were open.  New York's night entered the room.  It howled, gonged, and honked through the glass screen doors.  Thousands of amber lights sparkled in the Manhattan landscape.  Pete "The Barrel" sat with his feet up on his expensive suede couch.  A gay designer had just decorated the apartment. The guy's fee could have bought a new Cadillac, but it was worth it.   Women loved the place.  It made them horny just to step off the elevator.  The hot tub, the ten-foot TV screen and the giant bathroom did the trick.  But those days were over.  At least for a while.
      Pete reached out and ran his hand over the smooth hip.  The woman was curled next to him, sleeping.  He pulled back her robe and lightly touched her ribs. 
      Tracy Bennet Howel.
      He recited the name to himself.  This was quality stuff, though Pete would never say things like that about her.  She was the real high society.  Her parents didn't know, and wouldn't.  Tracy was the daughter of the Wall Street Howels.  Thomas Howel owned Howel Gene-Trust, the genetics firm over in Jersey.  The family owned half of the Garden State.  Now, Pete "The Barrel" owned Tracy.
      He heard a click from the outer hallway.  His hand slid under the mattress and came up with a Walther PPK.  Two guys were posted outside the elevator and two more down in the lobby.  He had soldiers on duty around the clock.  He checked the hall camera.
      Nobody there.
      Nobody there.
      He hit the intercom.  It was out.  Glancing back to the monitor, he saw a man disappear into the elevator.  Then he watched a brown manila envelope materialize under his door.  He smiled.
      "Balls," he said.  "Sons of bitches got balls."  He knew that the only way his men were gone was if they were dead.  Pete Venero was always ready.  He had an arsenal hidden in the apartment with anything he wanted within reach.  The son and grandson of Mafia, he lived in the old way.  You got them before they got you.  The threats had come early in life.  First, kids in school, then, guys in the street.  After that, things got very businesslike.  But Pete was still alive. 
      He flipped the robe back over the sleeping woman almost as if he were not alone.  His eyes were riveted to the monitor.  "Can't believe they did that," he said.  Slipping a note under the door was almost comical.  It would have been if four of his men weren't dead.  At the next meeting of the council, the moustache generation would get a kick out of it. 
     The envelope was tied with a string.  Around the little paper tab was a miniature hangman's knot.  There were three sheets.  A message was scrawled across the first.  Letters clipped from magazines were pasted in a bouncing pattern.  Flowers were pasted in a macabre border around the message. 
     The message was this:

      On the second page there were four Instamatic photos of bodies full of holes.  They were in a warehouse somewhere.  These were the men who were supposed to be guarding him.  The pictures were fresh, he saw.  That answered that question. 
     The third sheet chilled his blood.  It was an eight by ten glossy print.  The picture was an incarnation of horror.  It was an attractive blonde with a great figure.  She was naked.  Her knees had disintegrated into red oozing jelly from a pair of spikes securing them to a rough wooden floor.  A hammer handle was protruding from between her tortured legs.  Her teeth had been removed or knocked out leaving gaping red gums. 
     The woman was alive. 
 She gazed into the camera lens with a pitifully wounded stare.   At the bottom of the picture was an inscription.
     This one said:

     Joe Turner leaned back in his cracked leather chair.  He had been listening most of the afternoon to a poor woman gripe about her daughter.  He hung up and clacked the steel toes of his cowboy boots together.  Removing a filterless Newport from the pack, he lit it and inhaled.  Since the pussy act of Congress made filterless cigarettes illegal, the good Newports were hard to get.  Joe had a pipeline directly to the Seminole Indians down in Florida, who were the only source left.  He was a private investigator and it was the only source.  He lit his little treasure and spent the next five minutes coughing. 
      "Killers," he said.  "Damn things ruined my lungs and God help me I do love them so."
     The job had started as a hobby, but had begun to pay off when he got pictures of a buddy's wife with a local bowling league--the whole bowling league.  His friend would have paid anything for those eight-by-tens.  A lot of reading and three courses in bodyguard and security had begun a career.  Turner was a natural hunter.  He loved to find lost objects of any kind.  He had a talent for finding rings, keys, address books; anything lost.  Since he was a kid, he was almost a legend.  But when he became a professional investigator, he found people.  Joe was a tracker.  People, addresses, information, dirt; he did it all.  He read the signs just like an army scout at the Little BigHorn, though with better success.  Hide a pin in Yellowstone and Turner brings it back.
     White letters on his glass door read:

      During the later half of the 1990's, missing people were worth their weight in gold.  Joe soon found out that nobody ever really disappeared.  They all went somewhere and they left a trail.  They were either below ground or above, but they were somewhere.  The past, he found, was impossible to erase.  He knew there were books and pamphlets that showed how to cover the trail and eliminate any trace, but that in itself, left a trail. 
      His office in Bethlehem was a rat hole with no air conditioning, but it kept clients from getting too comfortable.  Sometimes they started to see the P.I. as a savior or therapist, a frigging god.  When you bring back little Suzy whose been pimped out for twenty bucks a pop for the last three years, well, its like they're back from the dead.  Not much better off either.  But that was only a minor detail. 
      "Rise and walk," Joe would say.  It was a private joke.
 He'd gone as far as China and deep into the jungles of South America to find people.  Once the case was on, Turner would stick to it until he had them, safe and sound, or he's bring back the remains. 
      This present case, a Mrs. Henson from Ohio had last seen her kid around Thanksgiving of last year.  That's when a lot of them made the great leap into the unknown.  Right around the holidays.  They got depressed or had too much of the family scene or maybe just wanted to see some new faces.  So, they saved their fifty bucks, packed their teddy bear and hopped the Greyhound.  90% were never heard from again.  Joey Turner brought back proof and got paid either way.  That was the gig.
      Mrs. Henson had lost little Roxanne.  Joe started humming the song by Sting as he looked over the most recent class pictures.  The kid was a flat out total knockout.  It would be good to find her just to make the acquaintance.  A cousin had last seen Roxanne in Altoona. 
     He dialed an informant named Snuffy.
     "Yo, Snuff?"
 "Yo, that's me," Snuffy said.  He had a deviated septum, which cause his nose to run constantly. 
     "Snuff, wanna made twenty-five real easy?"
     "What I haf to do?" Snuff said and sniffed.
    "Just talk to me about a little chickie named Roxanne."
     "She was around."
     "Don't fuck with me."
     "She was around.  Foxy Roxie.  Good lookin' as hell with white hair like Rod Stewart."
     "That's her.  What else?"
     "She hung with the Trekkies, the Nu Breed. Some dude named Tarhead had her hooked up."
     "Tarhead," Turner said.
     "Yeah," Snuffy said, hawked and spat.  "She was a fraternity sister if you know what I--"
     "I got ya.  Now for the money."
     "Fuck you Joey!"
     "Don't."
     "Fuck you man."
     "Come on.  Where...is she now?"
     Snuffy felt his fee slipping away. 
     "They ain't been around for a while.  Like two months.  Whata' you want?"
     "Where?"
     "They got busted for something.  Tarhead pulled a knife at the mall and the hit squad took'em."
     "When I see you."
      "No problem," Snuffy said and mumbled, "not."

     He parked behind a Dumpster and sat.  The Mazda was quiet.  When they went back to the rotary engine, they had a better idea than Ford.  You could start it up and hardly hear it.  The moonless night closed over him as he lit a 'Port and prepared to wait.  Though it was hot, he kept the windows up.  The constant hacking would give him away. 
     The Trekkies were an extreme Metal gang with violent tendencies.  They had branched out from Philadelphia and had started clubs through the Delaware Valley. Nu Breed was an old bunch and didn't talk to anybody.  It was a big deal to them.  But Turner could get words from a stone. 
      The roll-up door started to rise with a loud clanging.  It was a far cry from the up scale interior of the mall.  Light from inside cast a yellow bar across the tunnel.   A brand new white Yacuza step van was rocking back and forth.   As the van came into view, the screaming started.  A stream of profanity and threats came weakly from the loading dock. 
      The van went past him like a ghost and headed out of the parking lot.  The door closed.  He waited until it was at the intersection, then followed with his lights out. 
 

     Frank Holtz looked up from the pile of paperwork on his desk.  The boy had grown.  He was tall with the lean look of a long distance runner.  Good thing his mother was a handsome woman; he'd gotten her looks.  Kevin just stood there.  It was uncharacteristic of him to hover without saying anything.  Frank realized his fatherly duty and began by asking, "Okay, what's wrong?"
     "I just...sort of wanted to talk," Kevin said.
     They looked into each other’s eyes for a brief, awkward moment.  The new home was barely settled.  There were cardboard boxes still unpacked in every corner.  A better neighborhood had sprung up in an area that had been an old sandpit just a year ago.  Formerly a tract of land south of Mercer, covered in vines, corn, and forest, it now housed over two thousand families.  There were adjoining communities well into Durham Township. 
     "How's the new room," Frank said, trying to start things off.
     "Its great Pop.  Bigger.  Still smells like paint, though."
     "So, Number One, what's on your mind?"
     "Me and Kath broke up."
     "It happens," Frank said with a sigh.  "The good news is you'll be back to together by the weekend."
     "She said something.  Dad, she said something that really knocked me out."
     "She want to get married?"
     "No."
     Frank began to see the serious look on the young face.  It was a face that was a youthful mirror of his own. It was troubled with something that wouldn't be brushed off with a loving punch in the arm or a gentle tap on the jaw.  He looked at the boy's fingertips and saw the cruel black lines, deep grooves in the flesh that told of hard practice on the violin.  He thought with a father's irony that his son was also the best pass receiver that the Easton High Bulldogs had ever produced. 
     "I thought you guys were all totally in love," Frank said, now giving his total attention.
     "We are.  But she lied to me.  She started talking a bunch of bullshit."
     "Hold it.  You have never talked about Kathy like that.  Start over." 
     "Well, we were at Tinicum Park last night.  You know, marshmallows, Jimmy Muler and his girl.  They started picking on Kath about old Norman.  About how he was nuts and how he shot those dead guys."
     Frank saw tears spring to the corners of his son's eyes.
     "Go on son."
     "She said you were there.  She said that you were there at the old school, back in '85.  She said you were there."
     "She did huh?"
     Kevin said, "So what gives?"
     "Why don't you sit down, Kevin.  I guess we have a lot to talk about."
 

    The 11 o'clock news out of Philadelphia ran a report of Eastern Airlines 747 with 280 on board that almost crashed.  The anchorwoman stared confidently into the teleprompter as a small frame appeared to her left.  The passengers were being deplaned into onto the runway.  It was an emergency procedure.  There was some talk of poison gas or a leak in the fuel line. 
     The anchorwoman began: 

      "Eastern Flight 407 today, on its way south, nearly crashed, in what is being called an unexplainable occurrence.  Engine failure was ruled out as a cause by an investigation that has just begun. 
   "The aircraft was coming from Allentown Airport heading for its destination at Philadelphia International.  It began to loose altitude just west of the Delaware River over an area known as Mammy Morgan's Hill. 
    "Passengers and crew were stricken by extreme nausea and dizziness.  Both pilot and copilot were nearly rendered unconscious by the as yet unidentified illness.
     "More after this."
 
 

Joey Turner watched the neon-green landscape flow by.  The Mazda hummed along silently, keeping pace with the van.  He had kept about a quarter mile between him and the tail.  They had left the city of Easton and were headed into the sticks where farmland began to swallow the two vehicles.  Following without headlights was nearly impossible without the night vision gear.  They had been driving for half an hour and Turner realized very quickly that the van wasn't headed to a police station.  He reached across the passenger seat and felt for the tape recorder. 
     The driver's side window was open; the rush of air filling the car with the sweet smell of turned earth and dense woodland.  He closed the window and began to record. 
     "This is the Henson Case.  Joe Turner.  1:28 A.M. Friday, August 4, 1996.  I am doing surveillance on a white '96 Yacuza step van.  Been with them for about 45 minutes.  They're headed into Wilson Township--I...know not where.  They have three young people handcuffed in the back.  There are two guards, one driving.  These are members of what informants tell me are the hit squad, the security force at the Easton Mall.  I feel the need to record, because this appears to be federal criminality.  They ain't taking these kids out for breakfast.  I'm looking for a missing kid named Roxanne Henson who informants say, along with a male companion, street name, "Tarhead", was taken into custody by what I now believe to be the same people. 
     "This looks extremely dirty.  Oh, and uh, Margie, when you type this, take out the part about the male companion.  His parents ain't paying us.  FBI will probably be working this, if it is what it looks like, and we'll let them work it out."  The urge to embellish his recordings was always there because he wanted to sleep with his secretary.  She lived with her boyfriend and wouldn't come to the office.  They did everything by mail, but Joey wanted to be face to face.  She wasn't the only one who would see the transcript, so he kept it terse.  The tape recorder was equipped with a voice-activated function, which would begin working when the noise level got to a certain point.  Any conversation would go on the tape.  V.A. ran down the batteries which was why Joe usually turned it completely off.  Sensitive enough to pick up a whisper it would conveniently listen while he talked.   The settings were so close together that he had to look at it to be sure.
     The Yacuza turned into a compound.  Turner pulled over to the side of the road, cut the motor.  The place was well lit, floodlights skirting the perimeter.  There were three buildings; two small stone structures and a larger one that looked like a modern tabernacle. 
 

    Joey decided to walk down.  The van had vanished behind the main building.  There were no lights on in any of the buildings.  Turner stepped onto the grassy field.  He flipped the glasses off, moving them back over his head.  The grass was wet, ruining his boots, and later the tape would be heard to say, "Shit-fuck," at that point.  His stomach began to bother him.  He regretted eating at the Biff Burger.
     There was a small lake between the buildings that was surrounded by a stone wall.  As he moved closer to the wall he could see that it was not just for decoration.  The surface was jagged flagstone and corner pieces which were plentiful in the surrounding fields.  Hundreds of old houses with tumbling foundations would yield enough material to build it.  It was at least seven feet tall, curving in at the top toward the water.  The curve was wide, discouraging the idea of reaching over.  Turner squinted at the top three feet.  Then he saw in the dim light, that there was a bristle of nails and broken glass jutting from a cement layer. 
     Almost like they wanted to keep something in, Turner thought. 
     He heard something splash on the other side.  Spray flipped up into the air.  A great slap displaced a lot of water.  It sounded like a small boat was being dragged away across the lake.  Turner was consumed by an insane curiosity.  He moved in the shadow along the edge of the wall.  When he reached the rounded corner, he stopped.  He pulled the glasses down over hie eyes, and turned them on.  The bright lights of the parking lot would nearly blind him if he wasn't careful, but in the dark areas, he could see things.  Sweat seeped over his eyes, through the rubber seal, stinging, making him blink.  Suddenly a huge green globe appeared at the far end of the building.  It vanished instantly.  Turner thought for sure that it was a glitch in the head set.  He had never seen anything that bright.  Still no movement, other than that.
     Crouching, his fingertips brushing the gravel of the driveway, he crossed the open space.  He stayed low, entering the shrubbery along the side of the church. The glass windows covering the face were bullet shaped, black, twenty feet tall, sharp like lower jaw incisors.  The long row of tall windows in the side of the church was above his head.  He couldn't see a thing inside.  Toward the rear of the building, he found a steel double door.  He felt the outside of the frame for telltale wires.  No way to know if there was an alarm.  Had to be.  He pulled the picks.  He had a little putter shaped probe and the tension bar.  The putter was a wire blade about the size and thickness of a flat toothpick with a curved hook on the end.  It would slide in the keyhole and talk the tumblers into thinking they were being screwed by their own key.  Then the tension bar would turn the whole thing and Shazaam! Fred and Barney were no longer safe in their own home. 
     Turner was ready to run. 
     No alarm.  That's very weird.
     Inside, the cavernous church was lit only by the outside perimeter lights.  Pews stretched out before him, covering the floor.  There were three aisles, two along the sides and one down the center.  Joey Turner moved between a row of the seats.  They were plastic, he noticed.  He tapped his pocket, which he knew was recorded.  The loud knock on the tape would mark the spot.  He placed his palm on the smooth back of the pew to his right, down stage. 
     "Nothing really out of line," he said, his head held low just to make sure it was being copied.  "The floor is strange; it slants.  It slants in toward the center aisle, then there is a sort of groove or dip running down to the dais.  It's like a stage.  No curtains, cement flooring.  The place is more like a theater than a church.  It is strange.  Some architect had a hard on here."
     His ring tapped the top of the pew.  The sound again confirmed what he already knew, that the place had plastic seats.  Why not wood?  All the money that went into the place and they went for cheap seats. 
     "Okay, the uh, seats are plastic.  Yeah, so what.  But they're bolted to the floor and there is a line of white caulk sealing them up.  Why the fuck would they do that?"
     Light inside the church was getting better.  Turner realized that the night had all but passed and it was near dawn.  Time was feeling a little sluggish and he couldn't justify the whole night going away.  The gray haze of morning light was beginning to filter through the trees.  He could now see the ceiling.  A sprinkler system was visible. 
     "Super heavy industrial sprinkler system used for putting out chemical fires.  Along the wall, every fifteen feet I can see these metal boxes about chest height.  They're very nicely done, like they could go in some rich guy's den."  He opened one.  "God damn," he said.  "It's a fire hose.  He bent down and felt the floor.  There was no carpet.  The whole time he had thought he was walking on carpet.  It was a cement surface that was covered in, "Deck paint."  The floor, he could now see was a reddish brown.  He began to walk cautiously down to the pulpit area. 
     "Not right," he whispered.  "Not fucking right.  This place is...not right."  His stomach began to rumble.  He was seasick.  Thinking it was the odd slant of the floor and the combination of events, he took a deep breath.
     "Margie honey, when I get back, remind me to become a cook."  His eyes darted back and forth.  He was looking for a sleeping security guard, a drunken preacher, or a band of kidnappers.  When he got to the ornate podium, he stood on level ground.  There was a dais about a foot off the floor, which gave way to a striped cloth backdrop.  At each end of the backdrop, statues were recessed into the wall.  They were slightly more than a man's height above the floor.  Sculpted of some glistening black material, they were not human in form.  They seemed to move, seemed to be in motion. 
     There were throw rugs on the floor at his feet, four in all.  They were arranged in a line across the front of the dais.  Turner noticed that where the dais met the floor it curved up like a shower stall.  He pulled up one of the rugs.  They were of some oriental design.  Underneath was a large spot.  He reached down and felt it.  It was roughly the size of a manhole cover.  Pushing his fingers through the holes, he pulled.  It came free. 
     Brass.
     He was sweating from the exertion.  The thing was heavy.  Squatting close to the painted floor of the Gatherers Church of the Light, Joe Turner was holding a drain cover. 
 

    Frank Holtz considered his options.  For Ten years, his family had been safe.  He had moved up the ladder and become captain.  He wasn't on the street anymore and that was good.   Despite Clinton's promises that crime would diminish, the world still belonged to the criminals.  Every low-level crook knew that the court was on his side.  The smart move was to become a defendant.  Street people had a saying:  "Do wrong 'cause it always comes out right."
 Jails were full.  The procedure was simple, if one was taken in, four had to be released.  There were whole communities completely taken over by organized criminals.  They had their own town council, mayor and usually a police force.  Anarchy had become a franchise.
     In the last decade of the century, police authorities were the pariahs of society.  The force had deteriorated to a band of mercenaries, ex military and common thrill seekers.  These were guys and gals that simply liked a good shoot'em up. 
     The Clinton Administration would be in for another four years, though the country was leaning more and more toward another Republican president.  Health care was, as some had suspected early on, a terrible scam, used by the Democrats to get and then keep their man in office.  The poor were no better off. 
     Thousands of businesses folded the first year of its implementation.  Millions were out of work and on the public entitlement lists.  The government said that there were more jobs and most people said, 'Yes, I have three of them.'   To use the term "welfare” had taken on the same connotation as a racial slur.  No one dared find anything wrong with families who had no car, who didn't work, whose children couldn't read or write.  Though a steady stream of cars would stop in front of a home, full of teenagers, with the motors kept running; that was simply called "enterprise" after the decriminalization. 
 Holtz thought carefully about what to say.  The world had changed a great deal in the last ten years.  Kevin had some right to know what his father knew.  But how much?  Anybody, who knew about the facts of 1985 and case T-930, was either dead or fighting off the tabloids.   Even ten years after the fact, it tried to be a hot story.   If you were smart, you denied everything. 
     To a father fighting for a relationship with his son, denial, he knew, would come back to him as it just had.  Ten years of dodging left him weary.  It might do some good just to talk about it.  Kevin was in love, and love had drawn a line.  Frank had to push him over it. 
     "What she said is true."  He waited for the little explosion.
     "What's true," Kevin said slowly, deliberately.
     "I was there.  I saw what happened and Detective Norman Kirk was in no way crazy.  In all probability Norm saved the lives of a thousand or more people.  He certainly saved those kids at Mercer Elementary that day.  You were supposed to be there and I thank God you weren't. The man he--we--killed was very much alive and an extreme threat to the public."
     "Nobody ever told me that," the boy replied.
     "Yeah well.  You were five.  At that time you had an imaginary friend named Ju-Ju and he and I decided not to tell you."
     "What's that mean?  What's that supposed to mean?"
     Frank said, "Don't get mad.  Let your pop remember what you were like as a little boy.  That's all.  You caught up to me a little too fast.  I guess kids always do.  Anyway, it's time to level with you.
     "It was called case T-930."  Frank pulled up his shirt.  "We told you I fell off a motorcycle.  That's the only explanation that might fit these nasty scars." 
      "I always thought you fell off a Harley; heavy road-rash," the boy mumbled.
      "Never owned one.  Kids are too expensive."
      "Now I feel bad," Kevin said.
      "Well, don't.  Here's how it started.  Norman and I were investigating the murder of a little girl over on Sunday road.  And I was attacked.   I went into this old house--Norm’s car was outside--and found him in a closet.  He was hanging upside down, tied up.  You'd have to know him to understand, but that was unthinkable.  I started to untie him and something hit me like a bag of sickles.  Took over five hundred stitches.  I lost a lot of blood.  Norman saved my life."
     "Who was it?  Did you get him?"
     "It," Holtz corrected.
     "What do you mean?  Was it a dog or something?"
     "What we found out--what we now know--is that it's some type of disease.  Highly contagious, it changes people, alters their physical shape--"
     "Werewolf."
     Frank laughed.  "More like rabies, though the symptoms are very bad."
     "So," Kevin said, looking down, "Kathy was at the school?  I thought she was just trying to...I don't know what I thought."
     "That's how old Charlie got the prosthetic leg.  He went up against it hand to hand.  That's Bombar," Frank said, gazing at his son.  Charlie had become like an uncle to Kevin.  He had opened a school, teaching a group of handpicked officers and high school students a sophisticated form of kickboxing.
     "Uncle Charlie knows about this too.  Man.  You guys must think I'm an idiot."
     "No Kev, nobody thinks you’re an idiot.  This thing had to be kept a secret.  Everybody is on a need-to-know basis.  You, unfortunately, need to know."
     "So, what else--"
     "No, that's enough.  You either believe your old man or you don't.  Now, go and call your girl friend.'
     "Yeah. Yeah.  I will," Kevin said, nodding his head.

     "Hi Mom.  Sorry, Hi Mrs. Taylor.  Yeah, she probably doesn't.  Could you tell her it's me anyway."
     "Hello," Kathy said.  Her voice was gentle and weak, a question dangling at the end of the word.
     "Kath," Kevin said, "I'm sorry." 
     "She started to cry, almost silent sobs coming through the receiver.  "I'm sorry too," she said.  "I didn't mean--those kids just--"
     "No, no.  My dad told me.  I don't know what's going on, but I love you and--"
     "I love you too, Kevin."
     They couldn't talk after that.
     Finally, he said, "I'll be over."
 

    Joey Turner lowered the drain cover with great care.  The last thing he wanted was noise.  "Fucking drains," he said.  The heavy disk slipped off his fingers with an ominous clink.  Coming up from the pipe was a sour, vaguely familiar odor.  Then Joey got the feeling that he had overstayed his visit.  He ran for the steel door.  Stepping into the diffused light, he went against his instinct to flee and decided to check around the back of the church.  The Yacuza van had gone that way and just melted into the night. 
     Fact was, the money was eating at him.  He spent the night at this place and had nothing to show.  Foxy Roxy and her gorgeous teen goddess little self might just be playing Crazy Eights with these guys.  She did have a rep for being the partying type. 
     Behind the building, he saw a concrete bunker.  It was set about two hundred yards from where he stood.  Well away from the main building, it housed four huge fans.  He was reminded of the air-conditioning units in big skyscrapers and thought for a moment that that was what he was looking at.  But this thing was big.  The four rotating fans were as big around as a Cadillac hood.  Up one side, a ladder started at just about eye level, no doubt to discourage kids from climbing it.  Turner didn't want to climb it.  He wanted to be away from this place.  Still, he walked out into the field and got downwind of the bunker.  He was now about three hundred yards from the Church itself.  He could be seen quite easily now if there was anyone around, but nobody was. 
     The breeze lifted a few leaves and debris toward him and then it hit.  At first the smell was faint, but it came like a blast.  Like a meat packing plant that had closed for life. 
     "Time to go," Joey Turner said.  He started to walk briskly, then began to jog.  His $300. boots were certainly not made for running, but they carried him along just fine.  Screw the boots.  He thought of whom to call first.  This had to be handled with finesse.  There might be a book deal, a lot more than just the $5000. bonus to bring back Roxy's super-fine little butt alive. What they had going here was--
     He tripped.  He fell.  The air went out of his lungs as his chest hit the turf, square on.  He was sick as hell and for a moment wished the old coach of his first football game would come and pull up on his belt and make him all better.  He face was in the dirt, particles of shit going up his nose.  A terrible sensation came over him that he attributed to being nearly knocked out.  He was being pulled.  His nose was being packed with crud and he lifted his head to make it stop.  His chin began plowing the dirt.  This was it, Joey figured.  They had him.  Some line backer had him by the foot.  He twisted himself to see this giant and maybe reason with him. 
     But it wasn't a man. 
     Something large and black, like a bear, gripped his booted boot.  Now he was off the ground completely, supported by his left ankle.  The ugliest thing he had ever seen in his life grinned down at him.  His guts went sour and white, acid water spouted from the corners of his mouth.  It ran into his eyes and over his forehead.  The night vision gear slipped off his head. 
     "Am I gonna die?"  He spoke to the thing that carried him, gagging on his own bile.  Joey reached to his shirt pocket and ripped open the button that held it.  The tiny tape recorder slipped into the mud and was left behind.  The terrible creature above him grunted almost with satisfaction at that moment. 
    "I'm gonna die," he said again, breathless, in shock.  His ankle was broken for sure, bones grinding.  "I'm gonna die."
     It was true. 
 

    Holtz came up bloody.  The front of his shirt was splashed red.  He spun away, trying to break the grip.  A savage downward kick with the heel of his left foot knocked the man away.  Frank backed up, opened the range, ready for another attack.
     It came. 
     The kid was eighteen and fought like a pro.  He came at Frank with the right knee bouncing, fists up and down.  Holtz knew this signaled a kick to the thigh.  The right hip would turn and the bone-crushing shin would bring him to the mat.  In the outside muscles of the upper leg, a bundle of nerves the size of an orange is vulnerable.  A well placed round kick will cripple an opponent for days.  Holtz slipped his right foot up the calf to form a triangle.  It was swift as lightening, the knee jutting forward.  The kick came, bone to bone, but the knee was harder. 
     The kid went down.  He rolled away and was still, heaving, breathing hard.  They couldn't see his face.  Frank limped over and looked down.  The kid seemed to by crying, a grimace on his face.  He wasn't crying or screaming, but he wanted to do both. 
     Bombar limped over.  "Everybody's limping today."  Most of his hair was gone but for a thin lock that hung in a ponytail down his neck.  "Is that blood," he shouted.  "Good.  I wish that was my blood!"  He reached down and took the kid's hand.  "C'mon Warton, get up.  Get up and walk it off.  You have to break up those combos'.  Everybody knows when you're gonna throw a kick."
     "Yes, Sabonim," the student said and bowed, favoring the damaged leg.  He hopped on one foot to the wall and sat heavily on a bench.  Sabonim was the title of respect in Korea for a master of martial arts.
     "Everybody up!"  Charlie's own limp was hardly noticeable.  He clapped his hands and gestured for a circle.  "Break up the combinations.  In here, we do rounds, because rounds make us strong.  We fight with people who know what we do.  We are predictable."
     "Frank,” Bombar commanded.  He gestured toward the middle of the dojang. 
     "Sabonim," Holtz answered, bowed, not breaking eye contact.  Neither man looked down as they both bowed in respect.  Holtz raised his fists to his temples, a position known as fighting from the shell.  He crouched and moved in.  His left knee bounced with each step.  The shin would protect against a low punch or a groin kick.  Elbows pulled in tight, Frank was expecting to take a beating. 
     Charlie faced from the side, leaning away.  "Now, approach the way Mr. Warton came at you.  Approach me."  Frank jumped forward and thumped a savage kick to Bombar's thigh, the beginning strike of most offensive tactics.  Charlie didn't flinch.  He showed no pain.  The move was followed by two strong jabs, leading with the left, then an elbow with the left arm.  Frank pulled the punches just short of doing real damage. 
     "Enough," Bombar said, and bowed.  "That," he said, "was a simple formation, which would take out any opponent in a street situation.  But in here, we have to bend.  Frank and Warton--you okay son?--both came in for the kick.  They looked like they should look.  But the defense just wasn't there.
     "Frank!  On defense."  Bombar did the same thing, but as he moved in, preparing to throw the kick, he changed the motion.  Frank raised the knee to protect his leg, as before. 
     The ferocious kick was a fake.  Bombar stomped the foot down and threw a punch at Frank's brow.  The knuckles of Charlie's fist obscured Frank’s view of the teacher's eyes.  Bombar connected with Frank's chest, two punches that would kill a normal man if it weren't for the padding under the shirt.  Then as Frank tried to throw a kick, Bombar grabbed his foot, twisted, and Frank was on his stomach.  Bombar lurched forward and down, screamed, and aimed an elbow at his opponent's neck.  It stopped millimeters short of Frank's cervical vertebrae. 
     "Don't try this at home," Frank said through crumpled lips.  The class of twenty students laughed.
     Bombar said, "We want to perfect a few moves that hurt.  We want to learn moves that kill.  These procedures then become unconscious and the body reacts to a panic attack without thinking.  But in the dojang, they are clumsy and dangerous.  Never let the opponent know what you are thinking.  A little knowledge is a very dangerous thing.  Dismissed!" 
     The students packed up and left the building, each bowing toward the center of the room as they went.  Charlie Bombar walked to his office.  Holtz followed. 
     They entered the small office and Bombar sat on the edge of the desk.  He began pulling off the white pants of his gee.  "Frank, you cost me on that one." 
     "Didn't mean to hurt you, man."
     "Well, don't worry, we can still take showers together," Charlie replied, chuckling.
     "Ya mean it?"  Frank snickered.
     The prosthetic leg had been specially made to be impact resistant.  The fiberglass housing that created the shape of the leg was cracked from the hip down to the knee. 
     "That was a hell of a kick, Captain Holtz."

     They sat with their feet up, Frank with his two, Charlie with his one.  Bombar hadn't gained an ounce in the last ten years.  Still lean and powerful, he looked like an aging Thor.  There were a few scars where a student or worthy fighter had gotten an exotic punch through, and the nose had been broken, but that was all.  Everyone who knew him loved Charlie Bombar. 
     Frank Holtz, likewise, carried authority and a casual attitude into his police duties.  He had been brought up under men with hearts of stone and saw that the old style of domination was resented by coworkers and especially rookies.  Half the men who were under him had been gang members or reformed thugs of some type. 
     His blonde hair was silver grey now and though it had been over his collar while he had been coming up, he kept it in a tight military crew cut.  Bombar said he looked just like old Norman.
     German-Irish, his face had gotten a hard, chiseled look, almost hawk-like.  He trained three nights a week in Bombar's school and was on a strict diet.  He chewed the inside of his lower lip, causing a perpetually crooked smile.
      Charlie had laid the leg across the formic-top desk.  The long ragged split down the side had sprouted hairs of fiberglass and chips of flesh colored paint. 
      "What's on your mind, Frank?"
      "I told Kevin last night.  About the...you know."
      "Told him," Charlie repeated.  He stared at the ruined stump hanging from his hip.  "Thought you were never going to let the boy in on that.  Where was he tonight anyway."
      "He was going to say good-by to Kathy Taylor forever.  She told him about what she saw.  That she saw me."  Frank gripped the chair, his knuckles turning white.
     "Well," Charlie said, "he's in on it now.  So what.  He's a great kid--trains hard.  Couldn't have a better man at your side, if--"
     "Don't say that.  Don't ever fucking say that."
     "What'd you tell him."
     "Just the bare bones."
     "Don't say that."
     "Funny.  I told him that it was true.  He'll want to know more.  But I sent him over to her house.  Apparently some of the other kid were razzing her about Norm."
     "Sticky," Charlie said, "but it's bound to happen sometime."
     "Yeah, sticky.  The more the merrier."
     "Why don't you turn him on to the papers?"
     "That might be all right.  Might blow his mind too," Frank said.
     "It blows mine, and I was there too," Charlie answered, lifting the remains of his right leg. 
 

    Joey Turner was still upside down.  There were a lot of them now.  People or forms, he couldn't tell, but they were everywhere.  He was still being held by a vise grip around his foot. The pressure had been increased until both the tibia and fibula were smashed.  He screamed and the thing dropped him.  They were bobbing in and out of his vision.  He thought that he must be delirious. 
     "Joey, you okay?"  It was his dad, bending over him.
     "Pop!"  Joey yelled.  "Pop, help me!  I'm all fucked up here. Pop?"
     The gates to the lake began to open.  Turner turned from the apparition of his father.  He didn't want his dad to be there.  And just like that, he wasn't.  He could see out over the churning water.  It was black-brown with odd rainbows that suggested some poison oil slick on the surface.  There was a cement dock that stretched out over the water.  Something as long as a school bus writhed, snake-like just below the sparkling liquid.  He could see other monsters there, swimming, circling, waiting. 
     He looked toward the church.  The current flowed through him like a bad flu.  He closed his eyes, realizing that it was the only way to end this terrible feeling.  Joe Turner couldn't remember how he got there, or why he was there.  He was wrenched again from the ground.  The snarling, howling, screeching, song of the Lobesomen rang through his disintegrating mind. 
     Sick and vomiting, the owner of Turner Investigations was held by his broken ankle a foot above the water.  He struggled like a helpless turtle.  Then he saw it. 
     Swimming on its side like a hideous flounder, a serpent that was mostly head, opened its mouth.  Its jaws spread like a deep-sea creature with eyes not accustomed to light.  Glossy black grapefruits with huge gaping pupils, the eyes stared  at him and seemed to focus.  The mouth opened further, showing needle teeth inside more teeth, unhinging, adapting.  It rose a few feet in front of Turner and unfolded spiny black wings, which slapped the water like a malignant butterfly.  A ridge of spines ran down its back covered in a transparent grey membrane. 
      It swam closer, still on its side, rose up, beating the black water furiously and closed its jaws over Joey Turner's head.  His body was immediately iced cold.  It gleamed with pain as his nervous system went out.  The serpent swam away with its prize, followed by others that greedily sought the refuse.  Inside its mouth, Joey's head could still see and hear and smell.  It knew that sharp spikes pierced its cheeks, held it fast, in the slimy black scull of a nightmare. 
     As the sun broke over the hills to the east, the headless body of Joey Turner was released into the lake.  It floated for a moment, secreting adrenaline, blood and feces.  Then it was shared by a hundred fluttering mouths and was gone.
    It was true.
 
 

     T-930 had grown into a book.  Once a thin sheaf of scattered ideas, it had become a coherent text on the subject of containment and control.  There were more than 300 pages with contributions by Arnie Cohn and Martin Downing.  The two lab technicians concentrated on data and possible projections.  Arnie's extensive background in communicative diseases brought the report up to a useful level. 
     Kirk had been confused at the end.  His contributions were flamboyant and somewhat farfetched.  He focused on development of evidence and chronological sequencing.  It began with the discovery of Sherry Gardner on Sunday Road and ended with the triple burial of himself and his two co-workers.  How that burial was accomplished and where it took place was completely omitted.

 
    That these facts, as we have set them down, are true, is of the utmost concern and we cannot stress strongly enough their importance. 
     The pathology, given its radical nature, is difficult, if not impossible to trace.  What structure we have documented, came from the two offered specimens.  As victims, these were in remarkable condition, even months after freezing.
 We have discovered that we are dealing with a "street" strain closely related to the Lagos bat virus.
    As it exists, however it is entirely alien and truly compares to no known virus or microorganism that we have encountered.  Where the bat virus varies between 80 and 300nm, this voracious strain is demonstrated to be anywhere from 500nm to over 1200nm.
    The early assumption of Detective Norman Kirk that viremia is caused by touch of the mature specimen, has not been proven.  This was determined to be part of the mythology.  In order for absorption to take place, contact must be made with either saliva or blood.  This is in some cases made easily possible because the specimen secretes a great deal of saliva.   Both fluids are assimilated by the skin and spread along the peripheral nervous system. 
    Minute lesions occur within hours, at the site of contact.  Flesh at this point assumes almost a life of its own and is quite independent of the normal dermal tissue.  It begins a subtle rippling motion and takes on a transparency in the upper layers.
     Intracranial inoculation in mice produced mature symptoms within (1) 24-hour day. The hair of a white mouse is turned brown and the original shape and characteristics of the rodent are lost.  The new morphology of the animal becomes more and more fluid. 
     The inoculated mouse, at first, goes into depression.  It will not eat or drink and retreats into a corner of the cage.  It then goes into a state of excitement, running into the glass and jumping toward the top of the enclosure.  At times it is nothing but a blur within the confines of its habitat.  Then as it reaches the ferocious stage, it goes into convulsions.  Here, front and back legs become one appendage and the head expands, making room for the new mechanism of the mouth.
--Arnold Cohn

    Pete Venero squeezed the cellular phone.  The plastic sides began to bulge like a child's toy.  He hit redial.  A vein throbbed in his right temple, hot and red.  For a week, he had tried to get support for his family and nobody was calling back.  Another message had come, less expensive that the first with the photos and the dead bodyguards but this one made it clear that there would be no more waiting.  Venero wouldn't back away from Howell Genetics.  He hated being in this position.  The whole thing was fucking politics.
     He got a voice on the other end.  "Yeah," the voice said, Italian, very South Philly. 
     "Rock, let me talk to Uncle Mario."
     "Yeah, uh, he's uh, ow' rye now.  In a meetin'.  You wanna leave a message?"
     "Hey, Rocko, this is me, Pete."  Long pause.  "Now I wanna talk to my uncle or I'm gonna bury your fat, fucking ass in one'a my dumps!"
     "Look Petey, there's isn't nothing he can do.  Take the hint.  Let this thing blow over and later we'll all have a drink.  You know."
     "I know this...  You's are showing me your backs and I won't forget," Venero said and pressed the reset button.

     He sent Tracy back to her parents for a month.  Her father had wanted to meet.  Old man Howell had been surprisingly understanding.  They were Main Line Philly and he didn't blow his top.  Tracy got what she wanted.  The old man had his own people. 
     There was only one more person he was really worried about.  He called.  "Hey Gus, that you?"
     "Who else?  Como stah.  And how is the barrel?"
     "I'm okay.  Listen, I got a little problem.  What you guy's doing?"  Pete tried to sound apologetic. 
     "Some cards and Jerry brought over a couple of broads--"
     "Look, we got a situation.  I got two more guys coming over.  I called them.   But Gussie, I want you outside."
     "Nah, it's fucking hot out--"
     "Hey, I know it's fucking hot.  I know about the fucking weather.  Look, I got a little message--you know who it’s from.  It ain't cute."
     "How you lookin' over there Petey?  They're comin', you oughta' have five, six guys which you, you know."
     "Forget about me."  Venero didn't say that four soldiers had turned up dead.  "Just get your ass outside and take some fucking ordinance."
     Gus was staring at the redhead across the room.  "Yeah, you got it babe."
     "Anybody shows up, I want'em dead."
     "You got it babe."
     "That's good babe."
     "You my brother?"
     "Yeah, see you at Ma's on Sunday."

     Vito's Trucking was a four acre compound in New Jersey.  The name was painted in huge red letters across the corrugated tin building.  All the trucks were red and had the name in gold on the doors.  They kept an old sign painter busy all year.  The lot was at the end of a series of junkyards and storage huts.  The old rigs, owned by Vito Venero had been either scrapped or converted.  Most were open cargo haulers.  There were twenty tankers with separate hose vehicles.  Pickups with winch and drum to lay acid proof hoses were the secret to staying in business.  A pair of drivers could park as much as an eighth of a mile from the site and not be seen.  After the deed was done, nobody could prove a thing. 
     Nobody saw nothing.
     Only the waste was left. 
     New York and New Jersey were too close.  Strict penalties and jail terms discouraged dumping anything worse than old newspapers.  Paper alone could get you five years.  More than half of Venero's men had been put away two years earlier.  Now, the drivers went into Pensey, three or four hours away at a shot.
     Vito, Pete's father, had bought farmland from the hicks at twice the price.  Old people, no longer able to maintain taxes and upkeep were usually happy to get the good money.  And if they weren't, a bloody nose, or take a pinkie and they signed. 
     At $25,000 per load, the Venero's could afford to hire signature specialists, who would go around collecting autographs.  Half the creeks between Kintnersville and Upper Black Eddy ran with death. 
     Pete spent his boyhood watching his father work.  He knew what the old man did and how it was done.  Now the business was his. 
 Him and Gus.
     When Gus was a baby, Pete had spent many hours watching his brother in the crib.  Of all the things that he did to the baby, the one thing he must never do was touch the soft spot on the top of the head.  Pete felt for the soft spot and sure enough, it was there, just a small groove over the top of the tiny head.  One day Pete could stand it no longer.  He knew that it would cause brain damage but, so what.  What was brain damage?  Grown-ups didn't know anything. 
     Pete's little finger probed and pushed.  With one hand on Guss's little chin, he sunk his fingertip into the spongy mass that was the paracentrat lobules. 
     Gus grew up a little slow.  But no one ever suspected that it was due to a post birth brain trauma.

     The woman's name was Lois.  She was one of Jerry's friends and she was being kind at the moment.  Gus had simply said to come and she had obliged. Better than a wife.  When Pete said go outside, you went, because Pete was the boss.  Pete was like God, almost.  Gus was ferociously loyal to the family.  He was fast as an electric arc and built like a wrestler.  Were it not for the look of grey cement in his eyes, he would have been a contender.  He could have run things.
     He sat in a hose truck facing the main gate.  Between Lois and the 9-millimeter stainless steel machine gun on the dash, he was well armed. 
     Lois didn't bill herself as a hooker.  She was approaching middle age, but still got invited to the "parties".  They paid each of the girls around two hundred, but it wasn't like doing tricks.  Two things Lois really didn't like were the humidity and when they took a long time.  Tonight, luck had drawn both.  She could remember all the long timers in her life and she had a saying.  Some of the boneheads thought they were with their girlfriend or something and after about an hour they would forget themselves and say, "Oh, oh, I'm coming."  Lois thought it was sophisticated to lift her head and say, "So's Christmas."  They seemed to treat her with more respect, after, if she said it, so she said it.  The other girls thought it was the cleverest thing they ever heard. 
     Her head was keeping time with the music.  The rusty old dash radio was playing a ragged old rock tune that was reduced to a steady pop pop from the dried out speaker. 
     Gus looked out the window.  He thought he saw something move.  He was getting near and began to stiffen.  He reached for the weapon and made sure it was within his grasp.  The woman's head bobbed in his lap.  He couldn't remember her name.  He needed to know, or it wouldn't work.  Lightly touching her neck, he was going to go for the third time. 
     Just a tiny snap. 
     There was a hole in the windshield.  It appeared with the delicacy of small round insect.  He moaned.  Lois lifted her head.
     Gus thought, whispered, "It might be...Tina...or...Nancy..."
     The last thought to occur in a brain whose abuse had started early in life was Lois, it's Lois.
     Her name was Lois and she was glad as the man above her groaned.  Another hole appeared in the glass, a likeness of the first and Lois thought her last thought.
     So's Christmas, thought Lois.
 

    Gail Holtz turned her pillow over to the cool side.  She hadn't turned on the air conditioner in the bedroom and it was roasting.  Frank didn't believe in central air.  Even though they had it, there was still a window unit in each bedroom.  It was morning, and his day off.  What was odd was that he never got up early on his day off. 
     She smelled coffee.  The new house was bigger and well laid out.  Thank God for his inheritance.  He had wanted to wait for a promotion before buying in the new development. 
     "What'cha doing," she said through the doorway.
     Frank looked up from the keyboard.  The scrolling white information on the screen kept rolling past as he looked up at her.  She was tall, five-nine, and since she had let her hair grow, she was quite a fox, as Kevin would say.  The small petite mouth and straight Germanic nose were in just the right place.  Gail was fine to look at, but the striking Mensa level intelligence in her eyes riveted him every time.  She had on a satiny knee-length nightshirt and her breasts poked through, teasing around the doorframe.  She and Frank were both pushing forty, but she had just gotten younger. 
     "Well, good morning," he said.  "I'm just going over some numbers; some old stuff."  He looked like he should go to an emergency room and the moment she thought it, she was ashamed.  He had stayed up all night.  He was doing that a lot lately. 
     "You staying up a lot."
     "No really, just a new program.   You know how I planted those little flags years ago."
     "A flag came up?"  She didn't bother to hide the tension in her voice. 
     "Yeah," Frank said, "one came up."
     "Was it a flag from all that crazy stuff?  I thought we had an understanding about that." 
     "Honey, what kind of understanding can we have?  I'm a police officer and I have a job to do."
     "Oh, don't treat me like I'm some reporter or public relations--"
     "I'm not," Frank stopped her.  "Why would you say things like that?  I have to follow up on certain things."
     "Want breakfast?"  She had done it again; changed the subject right in mid-stream.  It annoyed him so bad that sometimes he would just hound her until she threw something. 
     "Already ate," he said.  He knew it wouldn't be a fun day off.

     She didn't know.  Frank pondered that.  The cushion of false and misleading information was a comfort at times.  It could work for you or against you.  He had refused to talk about the well-publicized events of 1985 and it had become a source of contention. 
     Marian Kirk had never been quite right again.  After the old man disappeared the second time, she stayed cooped up in the house with the blinds down, never going out.  That's what the thing could do.  That's what it did.  She was a good cop's wife and she went along with the funeral arrangements and kept up a front.  She did everything he had asked.  But all along, she knew that he would be back.  That he would appear one day soon back in her bed and everything would be like it was.  Then when he did appear, it was only to stop in and leave for all night sojourns to Christ knew where. 
     Gail didn't know.  She heard things about Marian from the other wives, from the gossip mill.  He heard the violin.  When they lived in Chicago she had been second chair in the symphony.  Now she did a gig once in a while up on Collage Hill.  She was so happy on those nights.  Coming home in her evening dresses, which she still kept, she was radiant. 
     He heard her practicing.  There was a difference in practice and playing.  Practice had the jumpy feel of doing little passages over and over to get it right.  Every now and then he heard a little grunt, as some complex series of gobble-dee-gook notes wouldn't go right. 
     Eine Kleine Nact Music.
     Mozart.
     She was pissed.

     8 o'clock.  He heard Kevin on the phone arranging the day with Kathy.  It was good that they were back together.  Frank had no idea what had passed between them or exactly what she had said to him.  It was okay now and that was really all he wanted to know.  He picked up the phone and flipped through the address book to L.
     The number wasn't in his head.  It had been a while. 
     "Hi Hellen," Frank said, cheerful.
     "Frank, is that you?" 
     "Hey, you remember.  I'm sorry to call you at home on a Saturday.  Jerry at home?"
     "It's been a long time.  I hear they only get memos from you boys over at the barracks now.  He'll be glad to hear from you.  Just a sec."
     Jerald Le Montour picked up on the other end.  For a moment, he wasn't as polite or welcoming as his wife.  It was just an inflection, but it was there and then gone.  "Hey, nice to hear from you for a change."
     "You hear from me every day and you know it," Frank said, trying to maintain the lightness in his voice.
     "How's Gail, and how's that boy.  I hear he's leading the East Coast in touchdowns."
     "She's beautiful as ever and Kevin is hoping to start at Brown."
     "Brown?  They don't have a team," Le Montour said in an effort to joke.
     "That seems to be where he wants to go," Frank continued.  "Jerry, I'm calling."
     "What?  What's that mean."
     "I said I'd call if something ever came up.  Something has."
     "The hell you say.  Listen Holtz; I want to keep this non-departmental for the time being.  You and Gail meet us up at the lake tomorrow for steaks and drinks.  Around six."
     "Six it is," said Frank.  "That's what I'd hoped you'd say."
     "Do I have anything to worry about, Frank?"
     "Probably."
     "Okay," Le Montour said haltingly, "hamburgers, hotdogs, potato salad, and.do you think Gail could bring her violin?"
     "I'll ask."

     Frank looked at the computer screen.  The net and the web and all the gigantic sources of information had him linked to most corners of the globe.  The world, as near as he could tell, was clean.  It was in his own back yard, as the saying goes.  He reached into the drawer and pulled out the tape.  Everything was adding up. 
     It was roughly the size of a postage stamp.  The cassette was dirty and slightly warped.  It had obviously been in the weather for weeks.  The mini recorder was shot, but a little alcohol cleaned up the ribbon itself.  He snapped it into his own player and listened to it again. 
     Not right.  This place is not right.
     Pause.
     Margie, when I get back, remind me to become a--"
     Frank shut it off. 
     On his desk, next to the color printer was a pair of night vision glasses.  The head strap gave way to a series of metal tubes and lenses.  The tape was certainly conclusive but the night goggles were expensive as hell and nobody would just discard them. 
     He didn't feel like listening to it further.  He would hear enough of it all day Sunday.  A hunter had been working his dog and found it.  The dog had gotten freaked by something and run off.  The man, who brought it, listened to the tape himself and had the presence of mind to turn it over to the Dublin barracks.
     The dog never came back. 
 
 

    The patient seemed to be gagging.  The therapist had seen this reaction before.  Eyelids fluttered as the man struggled for control.  His fingers dug into the plush fabric covering the arms of the chair.  An expensive recliner, the chair was an improvement over the old couch.  The doctor's own chair was a perfect match. 
      Dr. Frederic Eissler was a thin, brittle man.  He was six foot seven inches tall with branch-like arms and legs, narrow sloped shoulders and long fingers, whose digits reached well past any normal hand.  His feet were excessively large and for him, shoes were very hard to find.  Unlike some of the basketball players with size 14 or 15 shoes, Eissler's feet were narrow and footwear had to be custom-made.  His face was also long, in that, his chin drooped and his nose was sharp, coming to a severe point.  The overall effect was that of a faunish, wide-eyed doll, a Giacometti bronze come to life.  He had Marfan syndrome.  He never chose to use the term "afflicted", because he didn't feel afflicted.  Abraham Lincoln had Marfan Syndrome and also exhibited the lengthy limbs and huge feet.  Like Lincoln, the doctor was a very plain but interesting man.  He was fascinating to women and was constantly juggling three or more affairs. 
     He had achieved success during the sixties by treating the children of rich parents.  Some of those patients had abused phychedelic drugs, some were heroin addicts.  Most had suffered extreme trauma and needed continual maintenance.  One father, a well-known TV talk show host, had been so grateful that he had donated land in New Jersey.  What was now the Eissler Clinic sat in the middle of a pine forest, away from the noise and traffic of Trenton.  A long driveway snaked through the woods and ended in front of the reception area.  The pavement ran off the side of the building to an emergency room entrance.  Eissler's office overlooked the field above where the ambulance would pull in.
     Fingers rippled.  The nails pounded noiselessly like a pianist playing Chopin.  In fact Eissler was sometimes convinced that the man was playing the piano in an alternate world.  He was afraid that the arm of his designer chair might be damaged.  The nails actually seemed to grow as he watched.  It was one of the most astounding cases of stigmata he had ever witnessed. 
     "John" suffered from almost total amnesia.  He had been found by the Trenton police wandering the streets.  If it had not been for a colleague of Eissler's, John would probably have been homeless, or worse.  Prolonged amnesia was rare and the opportunity to study it was appealing.  He might never know the man's real name. 
      His office was spacious with shelves full of books and ceramics.   Pre-Columbian miniatures and Ming Jade sat alongside Revere silverware.   The walls were covered with imported Italian paneling, carved with scrolls and acanthus leafage.  The dark varnished wood was full of bass relief angels and demons. 
     "Breath John," Eissler said.  He took the man by the wrist.  "Just try to relax."  An unbelievably powerful pulse throbbed under the skin.  He felt an urge to run.  He always did, with this one. 
     "I...do feel...relaxed.  Very calm now.  It's so strong.  Like a drug--sometimes."
     "Do you remember drugs?"
     "No, never done them," John said.
     "How do you know?" Eissler gently prodded.
    "I don't know."
     "Think, my friend.  How do you recall drugs?  How do you make that comparison aside from your daily dosage?  Is it the same?"
    He cringed, feeling the obscene throb in the meaty wrist, thinking about what he knew to be a weak heart. 
     The patient said, "My life--what my life would be, without you.  If you hadn't taken me in--"
     "Don't think about that now.  You took your medication today?"
     "Yes, Murry is nice to me."
     "He is?
     "Yes, he came in this morning.  The medication cools me off.  The cool and the hot, emotions; they're all new to me."
     "Cool and hot," Eissler repeated.  He scribbled from right to left in a notebook.  He was a master of seventeen languages and took notes in Arabic. It was faster than shorthand. 
     John spoke in the droning, monotone that was his usual voice.  "Yesterday Fred, you said that you had to be skeptical, professionally.  You know that all my perceptions are immediate, like a newborn, almost.  Everything that happens to me is for the first time, and, there are a lot of surprises in my day."  He chuckled, which was so unusual that Eissler noted it.  "Why do you restrict yourself from what you see and hear?"
     "Interesting question," Eissler replied.
     "Still, why?"
     "Well, John, as a medical professional, I cannot--must not--admit to unproven ideas.  Eyewitness accounts are always suspect.  Science has to validate every trifle and it can be tedious, but only then can we say that we have seen."
     "You've had me here for six years, Fred.  And what have you seen?"
     "Most of that time you were in a coma.  There wasn't much to see.  You were healing from a lot of broken bones.  You demonstrated certain unexplainable phenomena.  Still do."
     "And that's why you keep me here," John said.
     "We're friends," Eissler answered, avoiding eye contact.
     "Yes, friends.  I'm thankful to you."  He sighed heavily.  "I have a feeling that you wouldn't be my friend if you knew what...if you knew some of the things I might have done."
     "John, I want you to listen to me.  There is nothing that you could do or say that would cause me to stop being your friend.  But, that's not what you want to talk about today.  Is it?  Actually, this is a conversation that we might have had when you first came here.  Why don't we really begin?"
     "Things are coming back to me.  But you said that they would be of my former life, family, and things like that.  Last night was bad, Fred.  I saw things.  Like when we watch the movies.  Hundreds of little film clips came to me like worms through a corpse.  My skin was in agony"
     "I taped it," Eissler said.  It was a lie.  The doctor had spent the night with a nineteen-year-old coed.  "Describe what it was like to you."
     "Static electricity pushing from inside.  Pressure on my face.  My nose felt dry and full of warts.  I felt it.  Ever had warts?  Warts all over me.  My muscles knotted up until I thought my bones would break."  He bent over, choking again, a constricted cry coming from his throat.  "I think I've hurt people," he said.
     "You were in your room the whole night.  There was no opportunity to hurt anyone."
     "No, no.  It was before I came here.  When I was lost."
     "Go on, John."
     "You don't believe me," he wailed.
     "I have to treat what you say from my viewpoint.  But I have to believe right along with you in order to treat you.  I've been thinking of reducing your medication."
     "Oh no," John pleaded, "you have to increase the dosage."  He was becoming agitated again.  The wild sheen of terror came over his eyes.  Eissler had taped close-ups of John's eyes.  In several incidents, they visibly changed color.  The same was said to be true of the killer, Ted Bundy.  His lawyer and several of his guards reported seeing his face change to features very different from his normal appearance. 
     "You've been like that--in a coma, nonresponsive--for so long that I need to readjust the treatment.  But I think that's enough for today, John.  You think so?"
     "Yes, Murry should take me back."
     "John, before you go...when you were here on Thursday, you did something for me.  Do you remember?"
     "The little statues talked."
     "That's right."  A group of jade carvings sat on one of the shelves.  They were fishermen with children cleaning the day's catch.  Each cut, each minute curve gave a glimpse more of the spiritual than the physical nature of the green stone. 
     "Can you do it again?  It was really extraordinary."
     John closed his eyes.  He became calm and rigid, his cheeks twitching.  Then, faintly, tiny voices and laughter started to come from the shelf. 
     Throwing the voice, as explained by professional ventriloquists, is false.  The "vent" practices many hours daily to listen to sounds as they originate.  When a dog bards across the street, the sound is imitated, reproduced, as it would be heard.  The difficulty is increased when two or more voices are attempted.  Though they may sound like the natural flow of conversation, the voices are separate, patched together. 
     As Fredric Eissler listened, the tiny voices became clearer.  Each figure spoke in exact proportion to its height.  They became real.  From where the doctor sat, the illusion was perfect.  His understanding of ventriloquism came from having had a dummy as a teenager.  He had given shows. 
     What he was hearing now was flawless.  The voices of the men and those of the boys were clearly distinct.  He got up and went to the shelf.  As he approached, the voices got louder, just as they would.  With his face only inches from the jade group, they were still perfect.  The control required to accomplish ten voices in conversation and the adjustments needed to close the range, were uncanny, unthinkable.  It was beyond his comprehension.
     The jade carvings, one by one, reduced to a whisper, then were silent.  Only the old man who was cleaning the fish continued.  He said, "This is what it's like, Fredric, to be on my couch."
     Eissler jumped back and stumbled into his desk.  John was slumped in his chair, eyes rolled back, showing white. 

     Just outside the door, the receptionist was on the phone.  Her name was Bonnie.  The intercom beeped but she didn't answer it right away.  It beeped again insistently. 
     Before coming to the clinic, she had been a nude dancer in Florida.  Eissler was taken by her petite, model's figure.  His mistake was to let her know it.  She was very popular with the male orderlies.
     "Yes Dr. E." she said.
     "Get Murry in here please.  Stat!"
     "Okay," Bonnie said, sounding like a wounded teenager.
     Murry Stillman was a great lump of a man with the strength of an ox.  Gentle and respectful, Murry obeyed the doctor with the devotion of a son.  He appeared in the doorway with a wheelchair.  Eissler began to help with the patient, but Murry waved him off. 
     "Dr. Eissler,” Murry said, "after I take John to his room, there's something we should talk about."
     "What it that, Murry?"
    "When I come back," he said, glancing at Bonnie.

     Murry led Dr. Eissler to a closet. 
     "I didn't want anybody else to see this."  He reached into the boxes of cleaning fluid and paper towels.  "He did this last night.  Sometimes when it's a full moon, they go wild, you know.  I would have called, but you weren't--you know--available.  It happened so fast and then it was over."
     Murry was holding a pair of nylon wrist straps.  The thick restraints were torn, shredded into unraveled fluff. 
     "I put these on him because he was rolling around on the bed.  He was doing that thing again."  Murry tugged on the straps, his arms bulging like small melons.  "I couldn't break them," he said.
     "Are the contractors almost done?"
     "They hauled their stuff out last night," Murry answered.
     "Good.  Let's move him in there."
     "I'd sure feel better," Murry said, and shrugged.
     "Murry, I want that room locked.  At all times."
     "Do you think he's dangerous, Dr. Eissler."
     "Just keep it locked."
 

Mountain Lake, New Jersey is a small community of boaters, fishermen and retired homeowners.  The lake itself is about a hundred feet deep, stocked with indigenous bass and other game fish.  It is a natural treasure to residents and especially attractive to tourists.  One of the novelties one would see asthey drove along the perimeter road is a tiny house called the NutShell.  It is a one room, wooden shack with a cedar shake roof.  There is space inside for perhaps a bed and a table.  A refrigerator sits outside the door, sheltered by the overhanging, tiny porch cover.  The little house was the first thing Frank and Gail Holtz saw as they rounded the corner before the lake itself.   Rows of rental boats with oars of different colors waited rocking gently along the beach.  Souvenir shops with hundreds of curiosities on display swept slowly past as they looked for the mailbox that said Le Montour.
 
 

The incredible adaptability and defensive structure of the mature specimen would make an outbreak very difficult to control...
      Observation in laboratory mice shows little difference between male and female genders.  The fact that reproduction takes place only when the viral fluid is excreted leaves a question about intercourse or insemination.  If there is no reproduction by way of sex, then it can be assumed that infected specimens would die out if no host were found.  The practice of necrophagia seems to be the most repugnant phase of an already hideous development. 
     Infected mice showed no sign of any type of sexual contact.  They did, at times, secrete blood from an opening that closes afterward, leaving no trace.  When a healthy mouse was placed in a cage next to an infected mouse, this sometimes occurred.  It seemed to be an offering.  None of the infected rodents attacked or made any attempt at intercourse.  They co-existed peacefully and did not attack.  At times, as many as ten would create a curious social structure and became knotted together so that individuals could no longer be identified.  As they did this, the effect upon the viewer would increase, i.e. slight nausea, dizziness. 
     In the months prior to this report, we observed no indication that the mice aged or slowed down in any way.  They were exposed to every disease, poison, and physical trauma that we had available in the lab.  Nothing had any effect but the puncture made by pure wood or wood by products.  Why only wood can kill the infected specimens remains a mystery. 
     But for one experiment, we limited our specimens to mice.  We did not attempt to infect larger animals.  Relative size became an imitate threat to us.  I must confess that we did include a small terrier when the work first began.  We realized very quickly that an animal of that size and weight could not be handled safely, given the equipment available.  Left alone and totally isolated without a food source or even oxygen, I feel that a mature Lobishomen would survive indefinitely.

      Naturally, when Detective Kirk brought the two bodies to us, we were skeptical of his story.  The fact that he is my uncle swayed me to run a small series of tests.  My colleague, Arnold Cohn, and my self were astonished by the results.
      As to the protective abilities or "armor" of the inoculated mice, the only theory is this: Many cases have been documented of impossible behavior and bizarre talents attributed to hypnotized subjects.  A man is able to stretch his body between two chairs, so rigid that he doesn't fall.  Thousands of people during the last ten years have been able, (during trance induction) to walk on red-hot coals.  Afterward, showing no damage to the feet or surrounding tissue.  Then there are Chinese acrobats who can place the sharp tip of a spear to their throat, having the point pressed into the skin with such force that the staff bends, and then breaks.  Again, no damage. 
       We could assume that the Lobesomen might, in the process of viremia, be subjected to a self-induced trance as part of that process.  This would directly dominate the subconscious in the host.  What we have seen in the manifestations of hypnotized subjects would then be the very morphology of these creatures.  Every form of extra sensory perception, buried talent, and skill of the normal human being would be fully developed in the mature exposed host.
      There is, unfortunately, a strong indication that those infected, lean toward the more aggressive, hostile, nature of the subconscious, rather than the benign.
      We discovered, however, that one in fifty varies from the pattern and shows lethargic symptoms.  These mice would neither attack nor did they show any inclination toward cannibalism.  They seemed at times to be bewildered, unable to locate the food cup or the water tube.  Only when provoked or disturbed would they become aggressive.  They would when exposed to a fully mature furious specimen protect themselves. These then, would become greatly more dangerous, exhibiting explosive outbursts.