Chaingang (7 page)

Does the sudden sound jar him or is it something else? Whatever early-warning system protects this strange, anomalous creature suddenly shuts down all his thought processes. He no longer reads, puns, fantasizes, or scans the bloodied, inexplicable darkness of his mind. He is back in the now, physically and mentally in Cell Ten of the hole, in Marion Federal Pen, and inside his head he pours blackness into his mind until it is absolutely empty and black as night.

Slammed down tight in solitary confinement of one sort or another, beyond the fringe of sanity, Daniel Edward Flowers Bunkowski has become master of his own inner wellspring. Calling on deep paranormal reserves, forcing himself through the walls of normalcy, he has learned to control his vital signs: to slow and still his breathing and the beating of his strong heart, and to freeze his mind into a state of perfect calm.

The beast-man has almost stopped breathing. This human who can hold his breath for four minutes, this monster who can bring his own powerful pulse-beat almost to a standstill—he closes his mind to the absolute blackness, imagining a black balloon dropped into an ocean of ink.

Imagine the balloon floating in the dark, inky sea. Now prick a tiny hole in the top of the balloon, and as it sinks, pour into it a stream of white milk. White pouring down into black, sinking, pouring, falling, the thump of his heartbeat now virtually stilled. His mind filling with bright, white milky essence. White as purest snow. Blank paper. And on the blankness of his receptor screen his presentient warning system keys a single word.

It prints a word across the blankness of his thoughts, bright red neon letters on dazzling white:

WATCHER

He feels the surveillance in the way that a hunter's prey will sometimes intuit another presence, perceiving intangible cross hairs of a silent gun. The awareness, the survival instinct, causes the hairs on the back of his massive neck and head to stand straight up. His hard, cold eyes blink open, and he looks in the direction of the observation window above. Where he senses human eyes watching.

Dr. Norman and the team from Walter Reed hover around an immense prone form, as they monitor the deep drugged state of the subject. One more time—after the brief recuperation period and final interview session—Alpha Group II will be employed as the insertion phase is accomplished.

“He's ready.” An anesthesiologist checks vital signs as they make certain the life-support units are functioning perfectly. It is warm in the maximum-security or. The chief surgeon asks for a wipe, and a nurse mops perspiration from the man's brow below his surgical cap.

“What I want to know is how it managed to swim this far inland.” An explosion of laughter. Norman's cheek muscles clench under his mask, but be has been forewarned. All great surgeons have their own style. This one indulges his flair for operating-room comedy. But he is the top man in the ultrahigh-tech field of laser implant work.

No blood from a cranial saw will paint Jackson Pollock—like artwork across the surgical gowns. The subject may not even discover that an incision has been made. Only the tiniest portion of the head is shaved, and care will be exercised that this will not be visible to the subject.

The small patch of bare skull is washed. Anointed with alcohol and other mysterious solutions. Meticulously dried.

The senior cutter examines the results, nods his approval, and holds out his gloved hand for the marking device. Takes it. Makes marks. Drops the object in a tray. The laser is in readiness.

“Let me see that X ray for a second.” He looks through it, makes a show of holding it to the light. “Yes. Just as I thought. This mammal has anthrax!” They all break up again. Dr. Norman grits his teeth.

“Okay.” Without further jocularity he burns his way in through the skull. “Jeezus!” he says. The stench is overpowering. Even through the tiny “window,” the subject's brain stinks.

Driven hard by a powerful wind, a loose bank of vapory clouds scuds swiftly across the sky of his mind. He feels his face in a gust of wind, misty rain, spray driven by the wind, and inside the beast's mind, his eyes open.

A row of corpses stiff as window mannequins, eyeless store-window dummies, their waxy faces liquefied and melting. Blue, Catch, Hardname, and Pluck, eyeless corpse mannequins, faces dripping, sit up and begin a centuries-old ritual, the ballet of pain.

Something alien courses through him.

Melting dummies jerk in the frenzied spasm of the devil dancers, tapping call to nightmare, epileptic seizure of the snake people, deathdance of the voodoo drums.

He has been drugged, he realizes.

The clouds churn and scumble, tossing into a cold, thick, white mist that keeps moving faster and faster, as window mannequins, time-compression film of dizzying sky.

The pull of the drug is strong.

Mortuary ritual and kinship in Bwaidoka, obesity as promiscuity viewed by therapeutic-statist praxeologists, Sudest Island Death Rites, themes that harden into book titles. Data retrieval. Wordstream.

A stream of vapor clouds his thought processes momentarily, as the voice cuts through the icy mist of drugs:

“—am your friend. You will be—” Identification of the voice. It is Dr. Norman, head of the program. Sodium Pentothal? Perhaps the new one he's been experimenting with; the one he calls Alpha Group II. An ice mass splinters, showering its shards through his mind.

“Daniel, it is Dr. Norman."

Daniel. Dr. Norman. Names. The name is filed. Dr. Norman has spared him discomfort.

Dr. Norman is retrieved through the haze of drug-induced confusion. The Physical Precognate: Stimuli and Response Beyond Self. Other titles.

The voice has been identified.

Inside his mind he sees the doctor saying, “I recommend a thyroid function test for Mr. Bunkowski to see if he needs some thyroid replacement medication.” The nurse makes a joke, and the doctor sharply rebukes him. He sees Dr. Norman telling the suits about him. Saying a word he does not know.

“Daniel, it is Dr. Norman. Your friend. I have good news for you, Daniel. Can you hear me?"

A lion coughs, and he hears it through the blocks of ice that are freezing around his brain.

“Good. Very good. Daniel, soon you will be free again. The program is a success. Soon you will be free, as I promised. You will be free to do the things you like, my friend. The things you are so good at."

He retrieves the alien word:
Algolagnia
. Sees the doctor telling an audience, “Occupant is algolagnic.” He knows now that this means he takes pleasure in inflicting pain.

“You must stay within the boundaries where you are safe. Daniel, you will be free to do the things you like. But for your own safety you must stay within twenty-five miles of the town where you will be set free. So long as you remain within a twenty-five-mile radius of the town, your actions will be protected. No outside harm will come to you. Do you understand?"

Wind blows over a mass grave. It is otherwise still in his mind.

The doctor. Another supervisor. Six correctional officers. Shackles. Cuffs with the security boxes over them. He listens for jailhouse noise. The slam of cell doors.

“You will also—"

Dead bodies wired inside sunken junkers.

“—want to exterminate—"

Bloated inhuman faces under the surface of a shallow stream.

“—particular subjects—"

A cat growling in the blackness of a jungle night.

“—as well as targets of opportunity—"

Haze. Loss of balance.

“—that you encounter."

A prisoner buried under the heart of an icy monolith.

“A dossier has been prepared that will introduce you to—"

A sense of deep perspectives.

“—these targets."

Blurring now as the powerful drugs hose him under.

“Daniel, you will—"

Going to black
.

“—of interest. You can study—"

Dissolving on the words of Dr. Norman as he completes the ritual of repetition and reassurance.

The brain implant appears to have been successful, but Dr. Norman wonders how things will go with Daniel. His affection for the beast is deep. He wonders if Daniel has bonded to him as well. Yes. Surely he has.

The dossier has been prepared by him. When Daniel wakens he will be shown the electronic display. General content, purview, presentation, and tone have all been carefully shaped. He knows precisely what it will take to engage that mind, pull him out of repose, enrage and motivate him into the cold kill fury that will allow him to function.

He has studied it himself innumerable times, and can quote content verbatim: “Police removed nine pit bulls from an establishment on Willow River Road, following a series of complaints regarding organized pit bull dogfights. Authorities said animals had been abused ... were being kept for so-called death matches ... Humane/society ... put the dogs to sleep ... Allegations of other animal cruelties ... Sutter family."

Norman could see the photos of the dogs. Then the ads of the animal auction and the pictures they had to go with it. “The Genneret Gun Show and Exotic Animal Auction ... dog ‘bunchers’ ... Virgil Watlow ... left strays that the lab wouldn't take ... Seventeen were found tied to a tree, starved to death."

It built like a hot romance novel heading for a breathless climax, or a symphony building to a timpani-filled crescendo. There was a certain undeniable aesthetic to it. He could imagine the rage that would flood Daniel's mind when it reached the report about “The Mutilator ... John Wayne Vodrey ... private collection of cat tails, paws, and other anatomical mementos.” Dr. Norman shuddered as he imagined the retribution in store for the targets of the dossier.

They wanted a “handle” on “occupant.” They used the word “control” again and again. They were the ultimate control freaks. He recognized it and played to it.

No, he was frank to tell them. There is no control for occupant. There is only understanding. Understanding and manipulation. But Dr. Norman had found the secret control handle.

Most towns have their share of animal abusers, but this one—simply by luck of the draw—had some of the most flagrant and heinous cases one could find. It had been a simple matter to investigate these, magnify them, and prepare an illustrated presentation designed to engage, enrage, manipulate, and motivate the occupant of D Seg's infamous Cell Ten. One more terrible coincidence with an upside.

“Can you hear me all right?” No response. Nothing. “Daniel, it's Dr. Norman. I won't let any harm come to you. You know you can trust me. I'm your friend.” One more time. The briefing period would mark his last hours of incarceration. Then Alpha Group II would work its magic and the subject would be inserted into the observation zone. “Can you hear me?” The lion coughed.

“Good. Just relax. Dr. Norman is your friend. Anything that I do is for your protection. Always remember that, Daniel."

The power of the experimental wonder drug had left its mark on the beast's face.

“You must remain within twenty-five miles of the killing zone. That is for your safety, my friend. As long as you stay there, you will have your freedom. Your old weapons are restored to operational condition and will be turned over to you. I got your weapons for you, Daniel. Your tools. After all, would we ask a master carpenter to build a house for us without his favorite tools? Everything is exactly as it was when you ... were returned to us three years ago.” The beast had been in Marion for two years and ten months.

“Do you understand what I'm telling you, Daniel?” There was a slackness to the features that reminded Dr. Norman of the face of a retarded child. But deep under the drugs, the lion managed another growl. “Your own beloved tools, Daniel! Think of that. Everything will be as you left it, your clothing, your special equipment—just the way you assembled it. We've even upgraded the things that had gone bad over time: you'll have new ammunition.” He glanced at his notes. “The explosives—the munitions—all brand-new."

“They didn't like that part, my dear friend. But I made them give you hand grenades and mines. They said, ‘Let him resupply himself in the field,’ but I reminded them that there were no armories or munitions stockpiles within a twenty-five-mile radius of your operating zone. We couldn't have you wasting valuable time accumulating tools, could we?” The look on the slack features was that of a brain-damaged baby, smiling.

“One last thing before the targets are presented to you. As I've told you, and this is important for you to always remember: Everything I've done has been in your best interests. The drugs are extremely powerful. But even though you cannot respond, you will register and retain this information. Do not be confused by the odd feelings you may experience when you come back to a state of what seems like full consciousness.

“It's likely that the chemicals in your system will have a secondary effect, and there will be a period in which you feel much the same as you ordinarily do, but perhaps your actions will be somewhat erratic or—” he purposely did not use the word “normal"—"unusually low-key. For example, you may find yourself interacting with others in odd ways, or you may notice other behavioristic ... lapses. Do not be alarmed. Because of your great strength, a particularly strong dosage of the drug must be used, but in time you'll be back to your old self. A day or two, at most.” The doctor shrugged. “There will be no further need for such drugs, so you'll soon find yourself completely restored and refreshed. Do you understand?” There was no response. Dr. Norman drew near the huge, bound figure.

“I'll miss you, Daniel. I shall genuinely miss you.” He reached out and touched the rock-hard muscle of a tree-trunk leg. “Will you miss your friend Dr. Norman?"

The slack-jawed look of the autistic child's empty smile was unchanged, but deep inside came a low, rumbling animal sound.

WATERTON, MISSOURI

“
A
w—,” he said, the moment she came to the door.

“Hi,” she said, almost before she got the door open, and they were in each other's arms, hugging on the porch. “Thanks for coming,” she said gratefully, into his shoulder and neck. “Come in.” Her voice was softer as they broke the clench and moved inside the house.