John Katzenbach - The Madman

And in that second of confusion, the three bodies tangled together, Peter found that the knife in his side was free, and he wrapped his own hand around the handle and, screaming with red pain, he pulled it loose from his body, feeling his life chasing after it with every pulse of his heart. Summoning every bit of remaining strength, Peter grasped the knife, and thrust it forward, hoping that it wasn't Francis that he killed, searching for the man who he thought very likely had killed him. And when the point of the blade bit flesh, Peter threw all his weight behind it, because, he knew, this was the only chance he had, and all he could hope for was some luck.

The Angel, gripped tightly by Francis's last bit of strength, suddenly screamed. It was high-pitched, otherworldly, a noise that seemed to combine all the evil that he had done to so many, bursting forth and resounding off the walls, lighting up the darkness with death, agony, and despair. His own weapon betrayed him. Peter inexorably drove it into the Angel's chest, finding the heart that the killer never thought he needed.

Peter determined to use everything he had left in that final assault, and he kept all his weight bearing down on the knife blade until he heard the Angel's breath rattle with death.

Then he fell back, thought of a dozen, perhaps a hundred questions he wanted to ask, but could not, and closed his eyes to wait for his own end.

Francis, however, could feel the Angel stiffen and die beneath his grasp. He stayed in that position, holding the dead man for what seemed to him to be a very long time, but was probably only seconds. The voices he'd heard for so long seemed to have fled from him in that moment, taking their fears, their advice, their wishes and demands along with them, and he was only aware that everything was still dark, and that his only friend on earth was still breathing, but that it was shallow, labored, and closing in on some end that Francis did not want to consider.

And so Francis carefully unwrapped himself from the embrace of the Angel, whispered, "Hang on," in Peter's ear, although he did not imagine that the Fireman actually heard him, seized hold of his friend's shoulders, tugging him alongside, and a little like a baby let loose from his mother's grasp, slowly, tentatively, began to crawl through the pitch-black basement, searching for the light, hunting for the exit, hoping to find help somewhere.

The noise in my apartment had reached a crescendo, all memory, all rage. I could feel the Angel choking me, clawing at me, years of festering silence building, his fury unending, unlimited. I cowered down, feeling his blows batter me around the head and shoulders, tearing inwardly at my heart and at every thought I had. I was shouting, sobbing, my tears streaking my face, but nothing I spoke out loud seemed to have any effect, or make any sense. He was inexorable, unstoppable. I had helped to kill him that night so many years earlier, and he was with me now to exact his revenge, and he would not be dissuaded. I thought that it was probably fitting, in some perverse way. I'd had no real right to survive that night in the hospital tunnels, and that now he'd come to claim the victory that was truly his. In a way, I recognized, he had always been with me, and as hard as I'd fought then, and as hard as I'd fought this night, that I'd never really had a chance against the darkness he delivered.

I twisted about, throwing a chair across the room at his ghostly shape, watching the wooden frame splinter and shatter with a crash. I shouted defiance, measuring what little resources I had left, hoping that in the moments I had remaining, and the small space at the bottom of the wall that awaited my last words, I could finish my story.

I crawled, just as I had that other midnight, across the cold floor.

Behind me, I could hear pounding, a repetition of fierce demand, on the door to my apartment. Voices called out to me that seemed familiar, but far away, as if they came from a very great distance, across some divide I could never hope to traverse. I did not think they existed. I screamed out, "Go away! Leave me alone!" not knowing whether the sound was real or fantasy. All these things had become jumbled in my imagination, and the curses and screams of the Angel filled my ears, blocking out whatever cries came from somewhere beyond the few square feet remaining in my world.

I'd pulled, half carried, half dragged Peter across the basement storage room, trying to get away from the killer's-body remaining somewhere in the void behind us. I was feeling my way, pushing aside whatever obstacles tumbled into our path, dragging us both forward, not really knowing if I was heading in the right direction. I could sense that each foot traveled brought him closer to safety, but also to death, as if they were two convergent lines being plotted on some great graph, and when they came together, I would lose my struggle and he would die. I had held little hope that any of us would survive, and so, when I saw a door ahead of me open, and a small shaft of light tumble unheralded into the darkness that surrounded me, I swam toward it, gritting my teeth against all that had taken place. The Angel howled behind my head, but that was this night, for on that night he was dead, and I reached out toward the wall, and thought that at the very least, even if I were to die within the next few moments, I still needed to tell about looking up and seeing the unmistakable great wide shape of Big Black hovering in the tiny sliver of light, and the music of his voice, when I heard him call out: "Francis? C-Bird? You down there?"

"Francis?" Big Black shouted, standing in the doorway leading down to the power plant's basement storage area and the heating tunnels that crisscrossed beneath the hospital grounds, his brother close by his side, and Doctor Gulptilil only a foot or two to the rear. "C-Bird, you down there?"

Before he could reach out and find a switch for the solitary light that might illuminate the rickety stairs, he heard a faint but familiar voice penetrate the darkness in reply, "Mister Moses, please, help us!"

Neither of the brothers hesitated. The reedy, thin cry that seemed to slice up through the pit below told them more or less everything they needed. Bounding toward the sound, the Moses brothers raced ahead, while Doctor Gulptilil, still holding a little reluctantly in the rear, finally located the switch to give them some light, and flicked it on.

What he saw, in the faint glow from a yellowed, weak, exposed bulb, pitched him into action. Struggling through the debris and abandoned equipment, streaked with blood and grime, was a teary-eyed Francis. Right behind him, being dragged forward was Peter, who seemed to be near unconsciousness, though he held his hand over an immense wound in his side that had left a shocking path of red across the cement floor. Doctor Gulptilil looked up and was startled by the sight of a third patient deeper in the basement, eyes open in surprise and death, a large hunting knife lodged firmly in his chest. "Oh my goodness," the doctor said, as he hurried to catch up with Big Black and Little Black, who were already trying to administer some help to Peter and Francis.

Francis repeated over and over, "I'm okay, I'm okay, help him," although he was not altogether certain that he was okay, but it was the only thought that penetrated his exhaustion and relief. Big Black took everything in with a single immense glance, and seemed to understand what had taken place there that night, and he bent over Peter's form, pulling back the tatters of the Fireman's shirt, revealing the extent of his wound. Little Black pushed to Francis's side, and quickly, expertly, did more or less the same, examining him for injury, despite Francis's headshaking and protests.