Her hair was dark red now, plastered to her face like blood. Despite that, he thought he probably looked worse. “Gallows Hill,” she said. “Doctor Lundgren.”
“She took care of you?”
“He — and he did. I still see him from time to time. He might even know what’s going on.”
Brautigan doubted that, but said nothing.
Gallows Hill was a Victorian manse rising from a wooded summit. Rain ran down the barred windows and cobbled walkways to the gate, where a guard stood with shoulders slumped. Brautigan offered a wave. “We’re here to see Doctor Lundgren.”
“I know him,” Lacey said, and called, “Marc?”
The guard didn’t move. As they drew closer, they saw why. He had wrapped an extension cord around his neck and tied it off at the top of the gate. His face was blue and bloated. Brautigan placed a hand of Lacey’s shoulder, but she only said, “That’s not Marc.”
The gate swung open without resistance. They walked to the entrance and pushed open the double doors.
The interior had a more modern feel, despite the fact that the lights were out, and everything was cloistered in shadow. Brautigan’s socked feet slapped against the tile floor of the lobby. “Anyone here?”
“Lacey?” A haggard-looking man in a white coat emerged from the darkness. He was about Brautigan’s age, and kneaded his hands as he slowly crossed the room. “What brought you here?”
“I didn’t know where else to go,” Lacey said.
Doctor Lundgren nodded. “We went into lockdown two days ago. Patients were throwing themselves at the windows, beating their heads against the walls… then the staff as well.” He mopped sweat from his brow with a kerchief. “Those who are still alive are under restraint. But they won’t eat.”
He glanced past them, through the open doors and the storm, and frowned at the dead guard. “He was thirty.”
“What?” Brautigan’s heart leapt into his throat.
“It’s happening to older people now,” Lundgren muttered.
“Why?” Lacey asked. And Lundgren actually had an answer.
“The only thing I can think of—although it doesn’t entirely bear out under scrutiny—is a dormant gene. Activated first in pubescent youths, which has somehow triggered a systemic response in older generations. I’m still trying to work out the mechanics of it.” He wiped his forehead again. “But I can almost certainly tell you why it’s happening now.”
This time it was Brautigan who pressed him .”Why?”
“I’ve studied the human condition my entire adult life,” Lundgren said. His hands went back to kneading one another. “We’re the most evolved, the most aware—and the most irrational, the most self-destructive. I’m hardly the first to point that out, but few have advanced the theory that we’ve hit an evolutionary wall—that Nature, of which we are part, will not only turn in on and consume us, but cause us to consume ourselves.” He looked hard at Brautigan. “Do you understand? I don’t mean that the external, Mother Earth, is attacking us. Our own genes are rebelling against the mind, the ego, some might even call it the soul.
“Come with me,” the doctor said then, and led them through a door into a long hallway. It was lined with doors containing caged portholes, and Lundgren glanced through each as he led Lacey and Brautigan deeper into darkness.
“Oh, God! Mister Gray!” Lundgren fumbled through a collection of keys and unlocked one of the doors. Brautigan stepped into the room after him and saw that it was padded floor to ceiling—and that the straitjacketed patient within had crammed his head into the corner and suffocated himself.
“How old was he?” Brautigan cried. “How old?”
“Fifty-two,” Lundgren breathed. “I don’t know, he might have done it on his own. I don’t know…” He stared oddly at Lacey. “Doctor Wolfe.”
The girl gasped. Brautigan whirled and saw her in the grip of a female doctor, who had planted a hypo in the base of Lacey’s neck.
The world fell into slow motion. Brautigan started forward, throwing his hands out. Lundgren caught one. The other closed into a fist, and Brautigan spun to throw all his weight into Lundgren’s jaw; but then the needle struck his neck and warmth radiated through his head. He stumbled sideways, hit the padded wall, rebounded and collapsed at Mister Gray’s feet. “Lacey!” he groaned. Her name echoed through his head, then receded into darkness.
“Do you want to see her?”
He was vaguely aware of having been conscious, and in conversation—then Lundgren’s face came into focus. Brautigan tried to say something, but it only came out as a low growl.
“You’re in a straitjacket right now,” the doctor told him calmly. “In a bed next door to your daughter. I’ve taken the same precautions for her. We’re going to get an IV line going to keep each of you nourished. I don’t want to fail Lacey, you understand. I’m taking these measures to keep you both alive.”
Lundgren rummaged through a sheaf of papers lying on Brautigan’s stomach. “You might go through the change at any moment. We’ll observe you both closely—having subjects of your disparate ages, related at that, might lead to a breakthrough.”
He glanced toward a window at the foot of the bed. The sky outside was still a murky gray. “We won’t be observing you, I will be. Doctor Wolfe drowned herself in the shower. I’ve tried to contact the local authorities, but there’s no answer. I don’t know that they could do much better than I, anyway. All I can do is keep you safe while I look for answers.”
Brautigan worked his tongue around his mouth, trying to moisten it so he could speak. Once again he was lost in a haze. All he could manage to grumble was, “Lacey.”
“Yes, I’ll take you to her,” Lundgren said. “Of course.” He got up and walked out of the room.
“LUNDGREN!” Brautigan screamed. No reply.
Tears rolled down the sides of Brautigan’s face. He tried to thrash his limbs, to toss his head, but he could do nothing but weep. He cried Lacey’s name. There was no response from her, either. Maybe the doctor had lied. Maybe he was alone in here.
But was Lundgren right? Would, eventually, inevitably, the suicidal urge take hold of him? And would being strapped down in this bed drive him madder still?
Lundgren came back in. He had a pair of syringes in his hand, a small bottle tucked into the crook of his arm.
He sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at the needles. Slowly, methodically, he stabbed one into one of the tiny bottles and began to fill it with a urine-colored fluid.
“What…” Brautigan pleaded.
“It’s not for you,” Lundgren said. He lifted the hypo to his eyes and studied the poison inside. Then he looked at Brautigan. “It’s not bad. I’m not afraid. I almost don’t remember what it was like before… it’s like waking up.”
The doctor and Brautigan both glanced down. Lundgren had begun sawing at his wrist with the needle. He watched idly as crimson spread along the hem of his coat. “Hmm.” Then he inserted the needle into his forearm.
“Where is my daughter?” Brautigan sobbed.
Lundgren sat erect, and for a second Brautigan thought, hoped, prayed that the man was lucid—but he was dead, and he slipped off the bed and onto the floor.
The room was quiet. The world was quiet.
Brautigan didn’t want to cry any more.
He only wanted to die.
FROM THE BOWELS
Benjamin Kane Ethridge
His scream was an outflow of bubbles.
He sat in an underwater silo, glowing blue fish swimming in cycles high above, radioactive halos in a murky universe. Something took the oxygen from the water and delivered it into his lungs, helping him breathe without reassurance or explanation. An aquatic plant with purple fronds clutched his arms and stroked his body with gentle kisses. His buttocks hung down inside the prickly oval cup of the plant’s flower.