Psycho Thrill--Girl in the Well (7 page)

Henning nods. The thought doesn’t sit well with him. On the right side of the corridor is a long row of windows with a view of the park. They can see the moon over a few treetops. On the left, they pass the patient rooms. The pale emergency lighting bathes the hall in a diffuse twilight. At the end of the hall, light emerges from an open door. They hear giggling, screaming, and sobbing, as they follow Professor Ludemann past a few doors. He leads them through the open door of an office, where two nurses and a doctor are waiting. Professor Ludemann introduces them and then they fall silent. To Johanna, it feels as if they’ve become part of a conspiratorial plot.

“Come on, we’ll go straight to Lukas Falkner, but first I want to start recording. You are also allowed to make photo and sound recordings, but I would request that you only use the recordings to help the boy, and not publish them.

“I assure you … .”

“Yes, yes, it’s nothing. I just wanted to have said it. I trust you.”

He leads them through the office to a door that opens into a narrow room with several monitors and measuring instruments. A cot and two office chairs make up the rest of the furniture.

“The control room. I’ll record our visit with Lukas Falkner and give you a copy to take with you at the end. Here.” He hands Johanna a stack of DVDs the width of her finger.

“These are not all the records, but, chronologically, they are the newest. Take them now before I forget.” Professor Ludemann turns on the monitors and starts recording.

“We have two observation rooms. The other is not being used at the moment. Here’s Lukas.” He points to a monitor with his index finger. They see a sinewy boy lying on a bed. There’s a nurse in the corner of the room with a hand on the door handle. The boy rears up and convulses.

“It seems to be starting. Come with me!”

They hurry back into the office.

“What I want to show you is about to start. Soon, we’ll give Lukas a strong sedative. It will be a dosage high enough to should calm him down within a minute and put him to sleep a minute later. It would even knock out a 175-pound adult. Dr. Miller?” The doctor hands Professor Ludemann a syringe. Henning gets his camera out of his backpack and gives Johanna the digital recorder.

“Ready?”

“Ready,” Johanna answers. They leave the office, go all the way down to the end of the corridor. Professor Ludemann knocks on the last door, and enters.

“I think it’s starting,” the nurse waiting in the observation room says, and steps to the side. To Henning and Johanna, the nurse seems relieved. Professor Ludemann nods to the two nurses on either side of the bed.

“Lukas, can you hear me?” Professor Ludemann’s voice has increased in volume. The boy’s trembling decreases, his body goes limp.

“Yes, Professor Ludemann.” Lukas answers. He seems calm.

“Lukas, you’re about to get one of your attacks.”

“Yes, I know.” He is motionless, lying stiff in his bed.

“I don’t know if he really still hears me or if it’s already his … other I,” Professor Ludemann whispers to them.

“I will give you a shot now. It should calm you, Lukas.”

“All right. Thank you.” Professor Ludemann nods to the two nurses. One of them takes Lukas’s arm and pushes up his pajama sleeve. The other stays near his head and waits. Professor Ludemann steps up to the bed and administers the injection to Lukas. Lukas lies still, his breathing is shallow. Professor Ludemann strokes Lukas’s head, and looks over at Johanna and Henning, as if to say “Soon.” Lukas turns his head, opens his eyes. Johanna and Henning gasp. Those eyes! Just like in the photo from the well. His expression is one of hatred, if not something worse.

“Well, little doctor man, have you brought visitors?” A voice that could never belong to a boy asks. Lukas looks over at Johanna and Henning with a twisted grin. His body shoots up, arching with great force, bending itself into an inverted U.

“YOU’D HAVE BEEN BETTER OFF STAYING WITH YOUR GAY FRIEND, LITTLE DOCTOR MAN. YOU COULD HAVE HAD YOUR ASS WOUND FUCKED
!
”
He laughs. Drool runs from his mouth. Professor Ludemann backs away. He’s been cut to the quick. There’s helplessness in his eyes. He looks at his watch.

“One minute. You see, the sedative doesn’t work.” He shakes his head, can’t even believe it himself. Lukas shouts, his body crashing on the bed and then springing back up, crashing back down, repeating it harder and faster.

“Secure him right now!” Professor Ludemann orders the nurses.

“Johanna!” Henning shows her the thermometer while he films. “Four degrees colder!” The nurses take two steps to the bed and first go to secure Lukas’s arms.

“NO!”
Lukas bellows, hits a nurse in the chest, throwing him all the way back to the wall.

“FAGGOT
,” he screams at Professor Ludemann. “
YOU’RE INTO BOYS, LITTLE DOCTOR MAN!”
Lukas laughs, spitting at Professor Ludemann. The nurse gets back on his feet and the three of them are now surrounding the boy.

“YOU LIKE IT WHEN YOU BLEED.”
Lukas hits himself on the nose, once, twice. Blood sprays on the bed, his head is hurled back.

“For God’s sake, secure him!” Professor Ludemann cries out and, suddenly, Lukas is still. The nurses immediately begin to secure him. Lukas pants, his breath condensing in the air.

“Forty-five degrees,” Henning whispers, keeping his camera pointed at the bed. Lukas lifts his head. Slowly. He laughs and stares at Professor Ludemann, who is clearly affected by what just took place. Lukas speaks to him in a different language and then laughs.

“That’s what you mean, right?” Professor Ludemann checks with Johanna and Henning. He struggles to maintain his composure.

“Yes,” Johanna whispers, barely audibly because Lukas is talking to himself in a monotone voice. Meanwhile, the nurses have bound his arms, legs, torso, and head to the door.

“What else has happened during these attacks?” Henning asks.

“Nothing else. He throws out insults and speaks in that language. Sometimes he ridicules the people present, provoking them. Eventually, he falls asleep.

“Does it always get so cold?” Johanna asks. Professor Ludemann considers the clouds that come out with every sentence Lukas utters.

“No. No, not in a way that caught our attention, right, Dr. Miller?”

The doctor shakes her head. She is clearly freezing now.

“And … the flies?” Henning nods toward the bed.

“Flies?” Professor Ludemann asks, confused. Johanna, Professor Ludemann, and Dr. Miller look over. Around Lukas’s head, there are a number of fly carcasses that look as if they crawled right out of him and died.

“The room is climate controlled and the windows are closed. That’s impossible!” Professor Ludemann hisses. Lukas lets out a throaty laugh, then speaks again, and later falls into a restless sleep. As they leave, Professor Ludemann looks as if he’s aged years.

Johanna and Henning reach Hamburg in the wee hours of the morning. There’s a light drizzle, but the sun is coming though. Henning double-parks in front of Johanna’s apartment, but she doesn’t get out. With blank stares, they watch a garbage truck and the garbage men collecting and emptying trashcans from the side of the road.

“You can call any time, Jo. I won’t be able to sleep anyway. I’ll probably just drink a beer and watch a movie.”

“Let’s go to the archive,” Johanna says flatly.

“What?”

“Let’s do the audio from the last DVDs and the video from today. Volker is usually in his office around nine o’clock. I’ll go see him.”

Henning groans. “No beer?” He can’t even pull off this little joke convincingly.

“Sure! We’ll go to the gas station first,” Johanna decides. Henning starts the engine.

Volker shows up at the Theological Department at ten past nine. Johanna is already waiting for him in the hall.

“Johanna!” He is surprised.

“It’s important, Volker. That’s why I’m here.” They hug briefly.

“You look wiped out. And you smell of beer!” Volker opens his office and they sit at his desk.

“Don’t worry, everything’s fine. I have some recordings now. Can you start on the translation today? Can you manage it?”

“Today? Johanna, this afternoon I have to … .”

“Volker, please!” She pushes a USB stick across the desk to him. He hesitates, but the pleading in Johanna’s eyes softens him and he takes it.

“Johanna, can you tell me what you’re working on here?”

“Just listen to it, Volker. When can you get it done?”

“I don’t even know how much … .” he looks at her. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Volker!” she gets up.

“You’re leaving again?”

“I still have a lot to do today.” She closes the door behind her. She wants to meet Henning soon, so they can visit Mrs. Falkner.

September 8, 10:45 a.m., Outside Johanna’s Apartment

Johanna throws her backpack on the back seat and gets into the car with Henning.

“They come out of his mouth, Jo!” Henning greets her, excitedly. She is too tired to understand right away. Henning hits the gas.

“Who comes … .”

“The flies. They come out when he exhales and then fall next to his face.” Johanna feels this sentence gnawing away at her.

“But you can’t see anything on the camera,” she objects and tries to escape with a technical discussion. It helps.

“I ran it through two image editing programs. It’s blurry, but you can make it out.” Henning hits the brakes, having nearly struck a cyclist while turning.

“Shit!” he curses, rubbing his cheeks.

“What does that mean to us? For the case, I mean?” Johanna asks.

“I’m not sure. At first, I thought that the flies were just there. In the archive, at the Kreuziger Farm. But that would now mean … .”

“Sorry, just a minute.” Johanna’s cell phone vibrates. It’s Volker.

“Volker?” she asks. The connection is bad.

“I don’t have any reception right now, Volker. I’ll call you back. Henning, pull over, please.”

He parks at a bus stop a little further along. Johanna rushes out of the car and dials Volker’s number. The people waiting for the bus stare at her.

“Johanna, listen!” The connection is much better now.

“I just gave the first recording a quick listen and I don’t really know what to make of it.” Volker waits. Johanna goes silent.

“Johanna, I need to know if what was said is from a recent conversation. Or is it just a recording from previous ethnological fieldwork and the date is just … .”

“It’s a recent conversation, Volker. It took place just a few hours ago.” She hears Volker take a deep breath on the other end.

“Are you the one the speaker is addressing?”

“No.”

“Do you know the speaker and addressee?”

“Yes.”

“Johanna, I don’t know how seriously I should take what was said. Seriously enough at least to warn you. Translated, the speaker is saying and repeating numerous, homophobic insults: ‘
Scholar,’ —
his tone is sarcastic — ‘
today I will drown you like a witch or a whore. I will drown you in your river. You will be the gift of the upcoming flesh. The gift of evil.’
”

“Thank you, Volker, I have to hang up and warn the person in question.”

Johanna calls the Children’s Psychiatric Clinic and asks for Professor Ludemann.

She is told that the professor has taken his break earlier today in order to take his mind off things. She runs to the car and throws open the door.

“We have to go to Lubeck, Henning. Right away!” she shouts, slamming the door behind her.

Henning takes the first opportunity to turn onto the street. On the way there, Johanna tells him the news.

“Drive up there, Henning!”

“I can’t go there, it’s a one-way street!” The car behind them honks. They are in the middle of traffic at Holsten Gate.

“You have to! The Trave River is right there — he always walks along it!” Another honk. Johanna turns around, a man is glaring at her through the windshield wipers.

“Go!” Henning hits the gas, turns into the oncoming one-way street.

“Fuck!” He accelerates between the vehicles parked to the left and right. The asphalt changes to cobblestones. On the right, the Trave River is flowing, and a footpath winds its way leisurely alongside the river, before joining up with the sidewalk next to the road. Professor Ludemann is nowhere to be seen.

“Keep going! He’s not there!”

“Okay, okay!” Henning swerves around a car that wants to turn onto the road. It honks and they are given the finger. The bench where she sat with the professor has to be somewhere at the end of the street. Trees and parked vehicles block their view.

“I have to turn off here, Jo. I can’t get through.” In front of them, the street turns into a pedestrian zone and they have to turn left into the old part of town.

“Just park here, we’ll go on foot!” Johanna throws open the door, jumps out and runs off. Henning leaves the car with the emergency lights on and runs after her.

The Trave River. The red and yellow leaves drifting on the water show that’s autumn. It’s a sunny day, drawing many walkers and people on their lunch breaks to the riverbank.

The bench is behind the docks. Johanna remembers it. And then? If they still don’t find him there? She doesn’t know.

They hear cries from behind the docks and see a small commotion break out in front of them — people standing around something, parents dragging their children away. Johanna is too short to see over them.

“Professor Ludemann!” Henning gasps beside her. The tall man staggers along the sidewalk by the river, he is waving his arms around and passersby are trying to calm him down.

“Keep going Henning! Don’t slow down.” They’re a few hundred feet away from the professor. They keep running. They keep an eye on him. He screams, but they can’t understand what. He is flailing his arms around, as if to drive away something in the air.

“Professor Ludemann!” she calls out, halfway there. Passersby turn to her with concern in their eyes.

“Professor Ludemann!” The circle around the professor opens up in her direction. Two men are trying to subdue him, trying to hold him down. He is unresponsive. His long body is jerking back and forth, up and down. His face is covered in sweat.