John Saul - Shadows

Reason!

He had to reason with Adam!

He glowered at the image of the boy, who seemed to be watching him, a look of contempt in his eyes. “No!” he gasped, his carefully controlled breath bursting from his lungs in a rush. “Don’t you understand? What you are is what I made you! You belong to me!”

“I don’t,” Adam said quietly. “I don’t belong to anybody. Not any more. Not after what you and Jeff have done. Now I can do anything I want to do.”

Engersol lurched backward, his lungs filling once more with the poisonous gas. A wave of dizziness washed over him as the carbon monoxide seeped inexorably into his brain, and he began feeling the will to fight slip away from him as the first drowsiness of impending death enfolded him in its arms.

He stumbled against the desk, then turned.

He saw the monitor that had refused to obey him when he’d tried to turn off the life support system. Battling against the specter of death that now loomed uppermost in his fading consciousness, Engersol marshaled his fury for one last attempt to save himself. A hot surge of adrenaline flowed through him, and with the strength the chemical lent his failing body, he picked up the monitor, jerking it free of the wires that connected it to the keyboard. Turning, he hurled it at the tank that contained Adam Aldrich’s brain.

“No!” Adam screamed over the speaker a split second before the glass of his tank shattered.

As George Engersol collapsed to the floor, nearly overcome by the carbon monoxide that was at last overwhelming his system, the nutrients gushed out of Adam’s tank. His brain, no longer floating in its supportive milieu, moved with the rushing fluid, rolling out of the tank, a shard of glass slicing deep into its cortex.

As it dropped to the floor, the leads connecting it to the computer were ripped away.

But it didn’t matter, for the instant that razor-sharp spear of broken glass had slashed through the brain that was his entire existence, Adam Aldrich died.

Died, just as Timmy Evans had died a year ago. Timmy Evans, as far as George Engersol knew, had never regained consciousness at all. Adam, at least, had awakened, his brain still functioning in the tank, proving that despite all his failures, in the end Engersol had been proved right.

Right — and even more brilliant than the children he taught.

But now it was over, not only for Adam Aldrich, but for George Engersol himself. Gasping for breath, his vision fading, the last image George Engersol fixed on before he died was the tank Adam had lived in, now as shattered as Engersol’s own dream.

A moment later, Jeff, who had watched Adam’s death with no emotion whatsoever, also collapsed to the floor.

Except for the throbbing of the generator, the laboratory was silent.

Alan Dover had been on his way back from the Aldriches’ house to the police department when the call had come through diverting him up to the Academy adjoining the university grounds. What the dispatcher had told him sounded crazy — Adam Aldrich and Amy Carlson still alive? Impossible. Dover had seen their bodies himself.

Still, though he was sure it was a crank call, maybe one of those Academy kids pulling off a weird practical joke, he wanted to talk to Jeff Aldrich anyway. He’d found some papers hidden in the boy’s room. Though he couldn’t read them very well, they were clearly electronics diagrams for the same model car the boy’s parents had died in that morning. Was it possible that the boy had actually killed his own parents? Of course, he knew it was possible — younger children than Jeff Aldrich had committed such crimes. Dover shook his head as he pulled up in front of the Academy, wondering once more at the kind of world that could produce such kids.

In the foyer of the mansion, he found a crowd of children chattering among themselves. As they spotted him coming in the front door, their voices instantly rose, each of them trying to be the first to tell him what had happened.

“There were screams,” one of the girls said, her face pale. “It was really weird. They sounded like they were coming from inside the walls!”

Dover frowned, then turned to another of the kids, a boy of about twelve. Brad Hinshaw nodded his agreement with what the girl had just said. “It was only for a couple of minutes, but it was really strange.” He hesitated, then decided he might as well tell the police what they’d all been talking about. “There’s a story about Mr. Barrington,” he began. “He’s supposed to come back sometimes. You can hear him at night in the elevator, but—”

“All right,” Dover cut in. “I’m not here to listen to ghost stories. I’m going upstairs, and the rest of you aren’t.” He fixed them with his severest stare. “Is that clear, or do I have to call some more officers?”

A couple of the kids backed away from him, and none of the rest seemed interested in following, so Dover hurried up to the fourth floor, where he found a locked door. Rapping loudly, he called out, “Josh? Are you in there?”

There was a brief silence before Dover heard a timid voice coming through the heavy wood of the door. “Who is it?”

“It’s the police, Josh. I’m the one who talked to you at the beach. Remember?”

Dover waited again, then heard a lock click. The door opened. Josh, his face pale, his eyes frightened, looked up at him. “Something’s happened,” he whispered. “Something terrible. Adam’s dead. And so is Dr. Engersol and Jeff and Hildie and …”

Easing his way into the room, and closing the door behind him in case any of the kids downstairs decided to come up and see what was happening, Alan Dover looked quickly around. Except for the books scattered all over the floor, everything looked normal.

Certainly, he saw no bodies.

“All right,” he said, moving toward Josh, who had gone to the desk and was now staring at a computer screen while his fingers tapped at the keyboard. “Why don’t you just tell me—”

“Look!” Josh said. “Look — you can see it!”

Dover came around the desk and glanced at the screen, instantly freezing. The image he saw made his groin tighten and his stomach churn. What he was looking at was some kind of laboratory, and on its floor were two bodies, both of them lying faceup.

He recognized them instantly.

Jeff Aldrich, whom he’d seen less than an hour ago, and George Engersol, the director of the Academy. “Holy Christ,” he whispered under his breath. His eyes still on the screen, he spoke to Josh. “You said—”

Understanding the policeman’s question even before he asked it, Josh tapped at the keyboard, and the view changed. Dover recognized Hildie Kramer lying on what looked like some kind of operating table. From her position alone, he could see that she was dead.

His gaze left the screen and fastened on Josh. “Do you know what happened down there?”

Josh nodded, his chin quivering and his eyes glistening with barely controlled tears. “P — Part of it,” he stammered. Slowly, concentrating as hard as he could on keeping his voice steady, he told Dover as much as he knew. “I didn’t see all of it,” he finished, his voice finally breaking. “F — For a while I couldn’t see anything, because Adam turned the camera off. But after he died—”

“Josh, Adam Aldrich has been dead for more than two weeks,” Alan Dover interrupted.

“No, he hasn’t!” Josh wailed. “He was down there! His brain was still alive!”

Dover decided not to try to argue with the boy, certain that after what he’d seen, he must be on the edge of hysteria. “All right,” he said soothingly. “Do you know how I can get down there?”

“The elevator,” Josh told him. “I think I got it working again. And I got the vents fixed, too, and the generator turned off.”