Chet Williamson - Reign

The conclusion was a simple one for Harry Ruhl to draw – they killed people in operating rooms. And since people were killed in there, what happened was what usually happens in places where people are murdered. Ghosts come back.

That thought was more vividly in his mind than ever as he walked down the short hall toward the operating room. He had to take the sinks and the table out of there, or Abe would get mad at him. He didn't mind someone being mad at him – lots of people had over the years – but what really bothered him was Abe's teasing, and calling him a pussy boy. So he had to show Abe he wasn't afraid. He had to show him he was brave. He had to take that operating table down there, right in front of Abe.

The only problem was that he didn't feel brave. He really felt like a pussy boy right now, and it was dumb, he knew, but he really didn't want to open those big doors to the operating room. Worst thing was that there were no windows in those doors, so he couldn't peek through first to make sure there wasn't anything there. He'd have felt a lot better if he could have done that.

But he couldn't, doggone it. So there was no point in just standing here, was there? Nope. What he just had to do was open those big wooden doors and walk right in, and there wouldn't be a thing there to be scared of, and he could just yank out that operating table and take it down and then go the hell home and watch something funny on the television to help him stop thinking all these dumb, weird things.

Harry put his hand on the cold metal handle of the door and was about to pull it open when he heard something inside the room and froze. It was a dry, rasping sound, like something scraping on metal.

A mouse? he wondered, and prayed it was so. Maybe a mouse's claws scratching the floor. But wait, it wasn't the floor, was it? No, it had sounded hollow, like something on the operating table.

Oh Jeez, he thought, and then, oh Jesus, damning himself as he heard the words in his head. He shouldn't think that, shouldn't think swearing. But in another moment the self-condemnation was gone as the sound came again. Could it be a mouse?

Doggone it, if it was he would be ready for it, wasn't going to let a mouse scare him, wasn't going to go down and tell Abe that there was something up there and then Abe would come back and say, "Look, it's just a mouse, you dummy, you pussy boy…”

Harry reached in his pocket and drew out a Swiss Army knife that his daddy had given him the Christmas before he had died. It wasn't a real official one – Abe had told him that – but it had all sorts of things on it, including two knife blades, the larger of which he now opened and held in front of him, inner wrist cocked up, like a child shines a flashlight, as though it were a talisman that could magically protect him from whatever waited within.

"Not gonna scare me, mouse," he said, and thought how lonely his voice sounded up here in the waning shadows from the far windows that faced the west. "No sir. I'm gonna open this door now, so you better scoot!" He shook the handle with his left hand and listened.

There was no sound now. Maybe it had run away.

"I'm comin' in… right… now!" He yanked the door open and looked in.

The doctor was waiting for him.

~* ~

(THE EMPEROR, tall, broad-shouldered, strong looking, stands behind the metal operating table. He wears a white gown spattered with red-brown stains, and rubber gloves glimmering with something dark and wet. His hands are empty, but his eyes are full of fire, and a saber lies on the table before him.)

THE EMPEROR

Hello, Harry. I've been waiting for you. Waiting for… the pussy boy. (HARRY tries to speak, but his throat chokes.) Give me your scalpel, Harry. I was going to use this… (He indicates the saber.)… but yours is much nicer. Give me the scalpel.

(HARRY walks toward THE EMPEROR with slow, ponderous steps, as if against his will. He reaches across the table and hands him the Swiss army knife. THE EMPEROR takes it in his right hand, picks up the saber with the left, and leans it against the wall. He holds up the knife and turns it in his hand, as if admiring the blade.)

THE EMPEROR

This will do nicely. (He reaches up and pulls down his mask, revealing his face.)

HARRY

Mr… Hamilton…

THE EMPEROR

(Smiling) No. Not Mr. Hamilton. Emperor. Emperor Karl Frederick Augustus, about to grant a boon to one of his most loyal subjects. Now. Won't you lie down? And then we shall begin.

God damn Harry anyway. Five-thirty already and the big dummy's still upstairs, and after how afraid he was and all.

Abe Kipp shook his head in disgust, as he paced toward the elevator. He always counted on Harry to let him know when it was quitting time, but for once the kid didn't come through. Abe had been backstage reading a twenty-year-old issue of Cavalier, when that smart-ass Curt Wynn came walking by and asked him what he was still doing there. When Abe looked at his watch and saw that he should have left a half hour before, he was torn between walking out the door and giving Harry a piece of his mind. He decided on the latter, as there were so few times that Harry really did anything worth yelling about. But this, dammit, was one of those times. Christ, stay late once and they'll be expecting freebies from then on. They got paid weekly, not by the fucking hour.

He jabbed the elevator button with his finger, and hopped on when the door skittered open. The lights were on on the fifth floor, so he felt sure that Harry was still there. He had never known Harry to leave the lights on when he was finished with a job. One thing you could say about Harry – he was dependable. Up until now, at least.

"Harry!" Abe called, but there was no answer. " Harry! Where the hell are you!"

It took him three minutes to find Harry Ruhl, and he smelled him before he saw him. The odor, sharp and sweet and salty all at once, was coming from behind the closed door of one of the operating theatres. Abe thought he recognized the smell, but when he recalled where he had first come across it, he dismissed it as impossible. The Venetian Theatre was no battlefield.

He changed his mind when he opened the door. Harry Ruhl was lying on the operating table, his abdomen split open, his intestines seemingly floating in a pool of blood that had overflowed its boundaries and lay puddled on the tile floor. In one of the puddles lay his genitals. Where they had once been was now nothing but a deep gash, apparently slashed there by the pocketknife that remained in the wound. On what was left of the skin of Harry's chest were words drawn in blood, "IM A PUSSY BOY."

Abe Kipp did not scream, or faint, or vomit. Instead, he started to cry. He cried for a long time, and finally, when he was done, he went downstairs to find someone who could help.

Dan Munro was eating dinner when he got the call from the station, but he immediately put on his coat and told Patty not to wait up for him. He had had a gut feeling that the Werton guy's death had been more than just an accident, and now this new death added a gallon of gasoline to that fire. His deputy hadn't known exactly what the trouble was, just that someone from the theatre had called and said somebody had been killed and that the police should come right away.

Munro arrived at the same time as the ambulance, and went with the medics to the fifth floor. Three men who he recognized as Sid Harper, John Steinberg, and Curtis Wynn were standing in the hall. He nodded to them and went through the large door where he saw Bill, his white-faced subordinate, taking photographs of the body.

"Hey, Dan," he said softly, and shook his head. "I've never seen anything like this before."

Neither had Munro. He felt bile rising in his throat, and looked away from the corpse long enough to force it back down.