Robert Walker - Zombie Eyes

"Sulfur trioxide, sulfonethylmethane, narcotic--"

"And we've found mephitis is also part of the potent poison."

"Mephitis? What is that?"

"A foul-smelling, poisonous gas emitted from the earth--"

"Like methane with a stench?"

"Enough to do some damage to the neurological processes."

"It's a miracle any of us came out of that pit alive, then."

"Your protective wear, the clear oxygen you were breathing saved you. Neither you nor the other archeologists received the kind of dosage that others have gotten. Somehow it's transmitted from one person to the next. We haven't learned the mystery behind its transmittal yet, but it would appear from our tests that those infected, with the normal body heat, breed the bacterial infection, and there is a kind of invisible-to-us gas created around their bodies. This disease is expired through their breathing, through their sweat, through their pores. We're all very much in danger..."

"It's a wonder I didn't get it from Weitzel."

"I've thought about that quite a lot," she said.

"And? Any conclusions?"

"Luck, or simply that Weitzel had to expend so much energy trying to strangle you as you say that he ... the thing inside him ... simply spent itself. Perhaps the spitting up at you was its last hope of infecting you."

"Then you are now willing to believe that something from inside Weitzel spoke to me?"

"Yes ... yes, I am."

She shut down the shower and soon the writhing cloud of yellow steam and the bizarre forms within it dissipated.

"Why? Because of what you see here?"

"That, yes ... but also something happened with Leonard, just before I injected him with the antidote."

"Would you like to talk to me about it?"

"Take another look in the scope now."

He did so, and this time he saw what had so frightened her. In the Weitzel sample there existed amoebas and bacteria skittering all about, but now in the Leonard sample the same creatures had strange, humanlike appendages and eyes. It so startled Stroud that he pulled his eyes away.

"You see it."

"It takes some staring, but yes ... I saw it."

"Like the souls of men on the head of a pin."

"And something wants us all to join it in its private hell."

She went about shutting down everything, including lights, putting away instruments, when Mark came in wearing protective wear and telling her that he would see to the "drone" work. She didn't argue, just cautioning him about the dispensation of the strange, gummy material that had seeped from two human beings, one dead and one alive. Stroud and Kendra Cline went through the decontamination unit and were soon on the other side of the isolation chamber. From outside, she said to Mark, "Be very careful in there. This thing is lethal."

"Go," he told her.

"So," she said to Stroud, "you still offering to take me home?"

"Absolutely, and on the way you can give me an update on Leonard. I don't suppose I could see him for a few minutes tonight?"

"He could still be contagious. We're watching him closely, and seeing you will only complicate our work. Maybe tomorrow."

"Fine, then perhaps you can tell me what happened between you and Leonard earlier to bring you around to a better understanding of why I was attacked by Weitzel."

"That I'd like to talk about, yes."

"I've got a car waiting downstairs."

She said her good-nights to the staff, telling them that by tomorrow she would be replaced, a bit of sourness in her tone. "Be good to the new man, or men in this case. They're both top-notch men on bacteriological and viral infections."

The others thanked her and wished her well. Everyone told her to get some sleep. Soon they were in the backseat of the squad car, whizzing to her hotel. Along the way, between yawns, she told him what had occurred moments before Leonard received his final dosage of a metal-plated shot. Stroud found the story very interesting, and when she finished he said one word.

"Mephistopheles."

"No, mephitis, I said mephitis before."

"I'm talking about the medieval legend of the demon that purchased Faust's soul," he explained.

Sleepily, she replied, "Ohhhhhh."

"The same demon gave his name in a play by Marlowe."

"Goethe," she corrected him.

"Marlowe as well."

"But that's stories, literature."

"It has always been curious to me that both Marlowe and Goethe gave their demon the same name, and he spoke in German when he needed to and English when English was called for."

"Literary figures," she mumbled.

"Or so it has always been supposed. I recently learned that Dracula was more than just a literary figure. Think of it ... before a few days ago who would have ever dreamed that an Etruscan ship lay beneath the largest city in the country, below Manhattan?"

"Yeah ... yeah..." She was dozing.

Stroud said, "Suppose for a moment that something of hellish dimension did visit Goethe and Marlowe, and did call itself Mephistopheles? Could such a creature have existed since the dawn of time? Another Mephistopheles? Alive since early Etruscan times?"

She started, her body twitching with a sudden violent reaction. She'd seen the trapped souls when she closed her eyes and it had shaken her.

He put an arm about her and she did not resist.

"What are we going to do, Stroud? What?"

"We're going to do what we've been doing; we're going to fight this thing with everything we have."

"But what if it's not enough? What if we're not--"

"Shhhhh! We're a great deal further along than we were this morning. Your serum saved Leonard, no doubt of that. It may save the others."

"Leonard fought it ... so many of the others have given up."

"Well, we're not giving up."

She snuggled into the crook of his arm, sobbing quietly. He held her close. "You've earned some rest. Come on, take it easy."

"Don't leave me tonight," she quietly asked.

"I won't," he promised. "I'm here."

-9-

Stroud sent the squad car on its way and he helped Kendra into the elevator and up to her room. She dropped her keys at the door and he picked them up. He let the door swing open. She stood there a moment, her eyes meeting his, blinking back the fatigue. She looked vulnerable, he thought.

"I've got a large room," she said, "with a view of the Hudson ... very nice."

She stared into his eyes as she spoke. Stroud bent to kiss her, bringing his lips to hers with a tentative, tender gesture. She quaked a bit before returning his kiss.

A bell rang, signaling that people would be getting off the elevator across from them. She pulled him inside and closed the door, covering his mouth with hers.

"Hey, hey, Kendra," he tried to protest. "You're beat, and it wouldn't be fair of me to--"

"Who asked you?" she said, covering his mouth again, filling it with her tongue.

"Whoa, easy, girl," he said, gasping. She had tasted wonderful, and she felt great in his arms.

"You talk too damned much, Abraham Stroud." She began unbuttoning his shirt, plunging her hands into the muscles of his chest. Stroud lifted her and carried her to the bedroom.

"I'm putting you to bed," he told her.

"Just as I wish." She kissed him and the fire within her, the smell of her, overwhelmed him. He returned her passion with his own as he knelt to cushion her where he placed her on the bed. She'd gotten his shirt completely open, and now Stroud removed her blouse.

He wanted to hide within the white texture of her skin, hide from all that was bad in the world, escape the evil, if for only a night. She pulled his head down to the center of her breasts, her body squirming, heaving below him.

"I need you," she repeatedly said, until Stroud joined her in a chorus of the three words.

After the lovemaking she fell into quiet, calm sleep, both spent and refreshed. Stroud lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling fan that had kept them cool, and in the rotating blades he saw no ghosts, no swirling dervishes, no bizarre shapes. He saw only darkness and movement and he felt only calm and warmth beside Kendra, listening to the sound of her breathing, his hand taking stock of her heartbeat. For the first time in recent memory, someone had stilled his own nightmares.