Guinea Pig (15 page)

Chapter Seventeen.

Elijah stood at the door to William's flat and for a second or two and wondered if he really wanted to knock on it or not. He was actually frightened of what he might find inside. He also didn't know what to say. He'd counselled dying people before. But mostly they were people who'd had time to come to terms with their fate. He'd never had to counsel someone who'd been murdered.

Still, after Reginald had finally finished his confession, he'd known he had to come. He had to bring comfort to the man. Someone had to and there was no one else. But he didn't know what he could say that would be even vaguely comforting. He didn't know that there was any comfort possible for William. Meanwhile the doctor was back at the church, probably still crying while other members of the congregation tried to care for him. That was how he had been when he'd left, and Elijah didn't know what to do about him either. Reginald had destroyed himself as well as William in his madness, and the pastor didn't know if either one of them could be saved.

Legally he suspected he should report this to the police. If he even knew where to find the police any longer. There were soldiers in the streets not cops, and they didn't know about crimes. They knew about keeping order. In any case while he was certain any number of crimes had been committed against William, he wasn't sure that the decision to report them should be his. It should be the victim's. After all, it was too late to prevent the crime and it didn't seem that there was any reparation possible. Informing the authorities might just make things worse for William as his condition became public knowledge.

Finally, after a whispered prayer, Elijah summoned his courage and knocked on the door.

It was a while before he heard anything, and he was beginning to wonder if he should knock again. Or if William was out. Or maybe that he simply didn't want to see anyone. But finally he heard the sound of footsteps in the hallway and braced himself.

When the doorway opened however and he saw William, his first thought was that he didn't look too different to before. But then he realised the man was standing in a darkened hallway in a bulky jacket with the hood up. William didn't want to be seen.

“Pastor Franks.” He greeted him easily enough, and that Elijah took to be a good sign. He wasn't screaming or crying or hurling abuse at him. “You heard I take it?”

Elijah nodded, not trusting himself to openly say what he'd been told. It still sounded crazy.

“Then …?”

“I came to help – if I can.” Elijah wished he didn't have to add the last, but it was true and he wasn't going to deceive Mr. Simons any further. He had been deceived enough already.

“If you can.”

William actually smiled a little as he said it, something that surprised the pastor. Having only just found out what he had a few hours before, he wouldn't have expected the man to be able to smile about much at all.

“Well, at least you're honest. Until he left the doctor was still trying to tell me that I had understood all along what he was doing to me. As if I had a bloody clue.”

“He isn't saying that now.”

“That's progress I suppose. Come through Pastor. I was out in the backyard having a cup of coffee. You're welcome to join me. And mind the holes in the floor.”

Elijah followed him through the hall, carefully avoiding the holes he'd mentioned. Two of the ice missiles had torn out most of the hallway floor, and in places he had to edge around them as best he could. But that was still better than he'd seen in a lot of his congregations' homes. Some of them had been hit by the lava bombs, and the houses were completely gone.

The backyard was a surprisingly nice space Elijah thought when he reached it. Quite large for a student flat's grounds. Especially in Westwood where land was tight. There were several large trees which would give good shade in summer and the grass was long and looked soft. There was also an outdoor barbecue area. A couple of wooden benches had been concreted into the ground on both sides of a fire pit. It looked like a good area to enjoy a summer evening.

Of course time and the string of disasters that had beset the city had left their own marks on the yard. And the most obvious of them was the wreckage of the shed and the huge crater beside it. Then there was the badly beaten piece of metal shaped into a table that Mr. Simons had placed over the fire pit. It looked like a piece of metal from a car that he'd hammered flat so that it could be used as a hot plate. Maybe that was what it was? There were enough dead cars around. Certainly it was being used as such from the metal kettle sitting on top of it. But that was just a sign of the times. People were having to make do.

When they reached the benches though William surprised him again. Instead of taking a seat on one of the benches he lay down on it, stretching out almost as if it was a bed. It seemed an odd thing to do when you had a guest. Surely most people would sit?

“I'm sorry Pastor, I know this looks odd and I'm not trying to be rude. But something's gone wrong with my spine and I can't sit any more. I don't really bend in the middle or anywhere else.”

“I understand.”

And he did. William had mentioned that his back was sore the last time he'd seen him. But even as he sat down Elijah was more bothered by it than he wanted to admit. Not because it was so sore that he'd lain down. But because of what it meant.

Degeneration. It spelled out a picture of his body slowly mutating into something that wasn't going to work at all. Little by little William’s body was failing. If his spine had fused and he was wearing those bulky clothes to conceal whatever else was happening with him, it suggested that the internal changes had to be even worse than what he could see. And they were moving fast.

He'd only seen William a couple of weeks before, but he'd been able to sit then however awkwardly and his clothes hadn't been so bulky. They'd become bulkier because whatever was growing out of him was getting larger. Elijah had a secret desire to see just what was happening under his clothes, but he refrained from asking about it. He was here to see if he could help, not to satisfy his curiosity. Besides, there was one other strangeness to wonder about.

“You seem calm.” In his position Elijah could only imagine that he would be climbing the walls with fear.

“I've had a few hours. And really, I'm still trying to take it in. But in the end there's nothing else to be done any more. And I've known that for a while. Hoping that the doctor would fix things was just a faint hope. Clutching at straws.”

“This has been gradual, and little by little I've been changing. Every day a little bit more. It's not like I just woke up and found myself like this. And I was fairly sure it wasn't reversible even before I spoke to the doctor. Long before. I went to the army doctors and they told me I had two hearts. After that I fairly much knew. The changes were too radical. The only difference is that now I know what was done. What he put in me. And that it was done deliberately. It wasn't just a secret experiment that went wrong. He actually intended me to transform – though not into this.”

Was that acceptance Elijah wondered? Resignation? Or denial of how serious things were? He didn't know.

“And now that you do know?”

“There's nothing to do. There never was. Not from the moment he stuck that needle in my arm.”

Resignation then Elijah gathered. He'd given up. And though it was a terrible thing to have to consider, maybe that was for the best. He hadn't accepted his fate, but he'd moved beyond hope and fear, both of which would have torn him apart. At least this way he might find a little peace.

“You know most people wouldn't be so able to deal with this as well as you seem to be doing. They'd be panicking. Desperate.”

“And you think I wasn't like that? I was. I spent weeks in a constant state of fear and confusion. You saw me. Now at least that's gone. I mean I knew it was bad. I just didn't know how bad. Now at least I know. I'm doomed. I don't really have to worry about it now. I’m just waiting for the end.”

“You don't know that.”

Elijah automatically denied him his claim, and then wondered why he tried. William surely understood how bad things were better than he did, and the last thing he needed now was false hope. Not hope of stopping this thing anyway.

“I pretty much do Pastor. The only things I don't know are how it will end. Will my mind fail completely before my body? Because I really don't want to end up as a drooling vegetable. Or will my heart or hearts or something else give out first? That would be better.”

Elijah wasn't quite sure what to make of his words. Whether he was being cynical and bitter, or realistic and sad. He would have reason to be all of those things. But the one thing he didn't seem to be was angry. That surprised him. So he asked about it as he got up and poured himself a cup of coffee from the kettle.

“Angry? What's the point of being angry?” William replied. “And at a mad man? It can't achieve anything. The doctor can't do anything for me. He can't stop it, he can't help and he doesn't even know what's coming. The only good thing is he can't do this to anyone else. Anger is completely useless.”

“So what do you want us to do with Doctor Millen?”

It was something that the pastor had to ask though he didn't really want to. Though it seemed unfair Reginald had fairly much destroyed himself with both his failure and the harm he had caused. And somewhere within him Elijah kept thinking, lay a good man. A good man who had done a terrible thing, and for no reason anyone could understand. He was already paying a price for that.

“You mean have him arrested? Excommunicated? What's the point?”

Resignation had given way to bitterness Elijah thought. But William had every reason to be bitter.

“Then?”

“I don't actually care. As long as he can't do this to anyone else and stays the hell away from me, I just don't care.”

“Besides, it's not as if I'm without blame in this. I trusted someone I shouldn't have. I let him do these things to me without considering it properly. All because of ten thousand dollars. I was blinded by greed. I don't know why the doctor did what he did. He's mad obviously. But I do know why I did what I did. I'm no innocent.”

“That seems harsh.”

It seemed more than harsh actually Elijah thought. The victim was blaming himself for the actions of his attacker. His righteous anger had turned inwards.

“But fair. And I can live with it. At least until the end.”

Once more he smiled sadly at him and Elijah wondered how he was able to. Maybe when he'd lost the ability to read and write he'd lost some other parts of his mind as well? The parts that allowed him to react as a normal human being.

“Are you in any pain? Because the church can probably arrange for a doctor to see you. A proper doctor.” To ease his pain not cure him of course, but they both understood that.

“Some, but I can handle it Pastor. And not to be rude but I've had enough doctors for the moment.”

Elijah nodded, understanding that at least. Not a lot else made sense but that did.

“But there is one thing you can do for me Pastor. You and the church. The one thing that the doctor can't. You can give me some idea of what's coming.”

“How? I mean we will of course, if we can. But how?” Elijah was mystified by that. He had no idea what was coming. He was still trying to come to terms with what he was seeing.

“The doctor can't tell me because he's never seen an angel. All he's seen are some chromosomes under a microscope. But the church has surely got records of hundreds or thousands of encounters. You can give me some idea of what to expect. What changes there could be. I mean, will these things on my back really become wings? Is this gold skin a halo or is that something else? Is my spine going to become even stiffer and sorer? How much more of my mind is going to go? And what about this damned diet?”

They were all practical, sensible questions. The things anyone in his position would have wanted to know. And unfortunately Elijah knew he couldn't give him the answers he wanted. He'd come to help, but really what help he could give was limited.